“Noon Sunshine-Young Scholars Seminar” is a regular academic exchange platform held by School of Finance. It aims to offer valuable occasions of communications among scholars in our college, between teachers and students, the domestic and the oversea. In this semester, we keep our original intention, set off for a new voyage. We will devote ourselves to fostering the academic atmosphere in the college, and promoting the academic level for both teachers and students.

The second session of “Noon Sunshine-Young Scholars Seminar” for the Autumn Semester in 2024 is arranged as follows:

Keynote Speaker: Wang Yedong

Date

Thursday, October 17th, 2024

Time

12:00-13:30

Lecture Venue

Room 116, School of Finance

Abstract

Based on 4.4 million news from about 6000 newspapers, this paper investigates the relationship between news sentiment and the cost of debt. We find that news sentiment is negatively associated with firms’ offering yield spreads. News sentiment can affect the cost of debt from firm level and market level. Further research finds that since Chengtou firms, state-owned firms and firms in developed provinces have strong government support, the impact of news sentiment will be moderated. If the credit rating is higher, the debt ratio is lower or the cash ratio is higher, the impact of media sentiment will also be moderated. This paper further changes the lagged month, the explanatory and dependent variables, and aggregates the bond level analysis to the firm level. Propensity Score Matching and Instrumental Variables are used to address the potential endogeneity concerns. News sentiment still has a significantly negative impact on firms' cost of debt.