營業秘密的保障與公司債信用利差之關係

Abstract

過去文獻提出許多公司信用風險之因素，而本研究專注於探討營業秘密受到法律保障後對於公司債利差產生的影響。本研究蒐集了2013年至2019年美國公司年資料，使用資料迴歸分析。實證結果發現，營業秘密受到法律保障後會使得公司的槓桿提升，然而即便提升槓桿將使得公司債利差擴大，但其效果會被法律帶來的保障抵銷，因此公司總體風險下降，債券利差縮小。

There has been a number of literatures related to corporate credit risk. This paper, instead, place great emphasis on the impact of Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) on the corporate bond spread as the proxy of credit risk. I collect the US corporate financial statements for 7 years to 2019 and conduct the regression analysis, overall, my results indicate that the DTSA does significantly increase corporate leverage. Rising leverage should widen the corporate credit spread, however, this effect is offset by the protection from DTSA. That is, the corporate credit spread is tighten after DTSA in force.