Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the innovative firm’s proprietary information has an impact on its debt financing preference. This study also examines the impact of industry-level competition on the debt financing orders and investigates how two exogenous shocks impacted on innovative firms’ financing policies.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses the three types of debt data, including bonds, private debt placements and bank loans and patent application data, in the USA from 1987–2008. The number of patents applications and industry-level competition are used as proxies for a firm’s innovation and industry-level sensitivity. In addition, to minimize endogenous concern, this study uses the propensity score matching analysis and difference-in-differences.

Findings

The patents are the primary determinants for innovative firms to choose the debt types. The paper shows that innovative firms have the debt preference order – public debt, private placement and bank loans. However, as competition increases, innovative firms devise the order reverse. Finally, the paper provides evidence that the American Inventor’s Protection Act (AIPA) and the tech bubble crash made investors depend more on firms with more patents.

Originality/value

This paper is the first to study the impact of the AIPA on innovative firms’ financial policies using the propensity score matching analysis. The findings imply that both patents and industry-level competition are important factors to understand the capital structures for innovative firms.

中文翻译：

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债务融资来源选择的创新：来自创新企业的证据

目的

本文的目的是研究创新公司的专有信息如何对其债务融资偏好产生影响。本研究还考察了行业层面的竞争对债务融资秩序的影响，并探讨了两种外生冲击如何影响创新企业的融资政策。

设计/方法/方法

本文使用美国1987-2008年债券、私募和银行贷款三类债务数据和专利申请数据。专利申请的数量和行业级别的竞争被用作公司创新和行业级别敏感性的代理。此外，为了尽量减少内生性担忧，本研究使用倾向评分匹配分析和差异中的差异。

发现

专利是创新企业选择债务类型的主要决定因素。论文表明，创新型企业具有债务优先顺序——公债、私募和银行贷款。然而，随着竞争的加剧，创新型企业设计出相反的顺序。最后，该论文提供了证据，表明美国发明人保护法 (AIPA) 和科技泡沫崩溃使投资者更加依赖拥有更多专利的公司。

原创性/价值

本文首次使用倾向得分匹配分析研究了 AIPA 对创新企业财务政策的影响。研究结果表明，专利和行业层面的竞争都是了解创新公司资本结构的重要因素。