Abstract: In the context of the integration of industry and finance, it is of realistic significance to study how corporate bank equity investments impact the provision of trade credit. Based on the data of China’s A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2020, this paper finds that bank equity investment can crowd out the provision of trade credit; the higher the investment proportion, the more obvious the crowding-out effect on the provision of trade credit will be. The above conclusion is valid after using the Heckman two-stage model to alleviate the sample self-selection deviation, and using the instrumental variables and the generalized method of moment to alleviate the endogenous problem caused by the two-way causality. The results of the channel analysis show that the bank equity investment can crowd out the provision of trade credit through the three channels, i.e., increasing corporate financial assets investment, increasing corporate income from investment and improving corporate competitive ability. The results of the heterogeneity test show that, compared with the investment in the non-listed banks, the corporate investment in the listed banks has a more significant crowding-out effect on the provision of trade credit. Therefore, it would be helpful to alleviate the crowding-out effect of bank equity investment on the provision of trade credit by regulating the financial asset investment behavior of bank shareholders and guiding the entity enterprises to focus on the development of their main business.

Key words: bank equity investment, trade credit, crowding-out effect