The different impacts of heterogeneous lease assets on the costs of debt: a risk-sharing perspective

We examine whether the credit market participants price operating lease differently from finance lease in the perspective of risk sharing. Using a unique setting that the new lease standard is enforced in China since 2019, we find that operating (finance) lease asset shares are negatively (positively) related to lessees’ costs of debt, the risk-sharing role of operating lease assets is a mechanism of reducing COD, and this effect is more significant at firms with more financial constraints and insufficient cash flow. We fill the gap in the literature with a contribution to separate the risk-sharing effect from the accounting treatment effect in the association between two kinds of lease and costs of debt. These findings have important implications for policymakers and companies.