Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
This paper examines the influence of digital transformation in finance companies within business groups on the financing constraints of enterprises. In this paper, we demonstrate that the digital transformation of finance companies within business groups can markedly alleviate the financing constraints of enterprises within the same group through the 'information effect'. Specifically, the digital transformation of finance companies can reduce the information asymmetry between the supply and demand sides of funds and thus help to alleviate the financing constraints of enterprises in the business group. Our findings remain robust after conducting various tests, such as replacing the dependent variables, excluding other policy disruptions, and employing a placebo test. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the digital transformation of finance companies has a greater impact on the financing constraints of subsidiaries within business groups that have a higher proportion of shares held by the ultimate controller. The alleviating effect of digital transformation on the financing constraints of enterprises under their control is stronger for finance companies that originally had less prominent roles in lending, entrusted, and guaranteed businesses.
Wenbo Zhu (Tue,) studied this question.