Abstract: With the overall lift of interest rate control, loan prices are determined by the two trading parties through negotiation in accordance with the value principle and supply-demand principle. Based on the loan data of China’s listed companies from 2005 to 2016, this paper measure the size of the loan bargaining power of both the lending and borrowing parties by employing a two-tier stochastic frontier model. The result shows that: (1) enterprises are at the weaker side in the loan price negotiations, the surplus obtained by the enterprises is only two thirds of the surplus obtained by the lenders, the unequal bargaining power of both the parties makes the loan trading price nearly one fifth higher than the fair price; (2) the bargaining power of enterprises is strongest when they apply loans from finance companies, weaker when applying from banks, and weakest when financing from trust companies; the loan bargaining power of the central state-owned enterprises is the strongest, the private enterprises and the local state-owned enterprises have almost the same power, while the loan bargaining power of foreign-funded enterprises is the weakest; (3) the loan bargaining power of enterprises has not been obviously enhanced during the sample period, the surplus gained by the enterprises has not increased along with the lift of interest rate control and the improvement of the market structure of the financial industry.

Key words: listed companies; loan bargaining power; two-tier stochastic frontier model.