Digital transformation and debt financing cost: A threefold risk perspective

IF 6.1 2区经济学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Journal of Financial Stability Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.jfs.2024.101368

Ethan Xin Liu, Lily Dang

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Abstract

This paper reports the results of an investigation of the impact of digital transformation on debt financing costs. By integrating information asymmetry theory and agency theory, we have developed a threefold risk-theoretic model to demonstrate how corporate digital transformation affects a firm’s debt financing costs. Drawing on a dataset of Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2022, we measured digital transformation across three dimensions: attention, investment, and outcomes. The findings reveal that corporate digital transformation significantly reduces the cost of debt financing for companies. Mechanism tests indicate that digital transformation reduces debt financing costs by mitigating information risk, agency risk, and earnings risk through enhanced information disclosure quality, strengthened corporate governance, and improved expected earnings. Our paper not only enriches emerging research on the impact of corporate digital transformation on financial accounting but also provides theoretical insights for effectively alleviating the issue of expensive financing.

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数字化转型与债务融资成本：三重风险视角

本文报告了一项关于数字化转型对债务融资成本影响的调查结果。通过整合信息不对称理论和代理理论，我们建立了一个三重风险理论模型来证明企业数字化转型如何影响企业的债务融资成本。利用2007年至2022年中国上市公司的数据集，我们从关注度、投资和成果三个维度衡量了数字化转型。研究结果显示，企业数字化转型显著降低了企业的债务融资成本。机制检验表明，数字化转型通过提高信息披露质量、强化公司治理、提高预期盈余，降低信息风险、代理风险和盈余风险，从而降低债务融资成本。本文不仅丰富了企业数字化转型对财务会计影响的新兴研究，而且为有效缓解融资成本过高的问题提供了理论见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Financial Stability Multiple-

CiteScore

7.70

自引率

9.30%

发文量

审稿时长

34 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Financial Stability provides an international forum for rigorous theoretical and empirical macro and micro economic and financial analysis of the causes, management, resolution and preventions of financial crises, including banking, securities market, payments and currency crises. The primary focus is on applied research that would be useful in affecting public policy with respect to financial stability. Thus, the Journal seeks to promote interaction among researchers, policy-makers and practitioners to identify potential risks to financial stability and develop means for preventing, mitigating or managing these risks both within and across countries.