Central supervision and earnings management: Quasi-experimental evidence from China

Earnings management is costly to society because it decreases the informativeness of earnings and hence distorts capital market efficiency. Drawing upon a natural experiment generated by the staggered random on-site inspection programme initiated by China's central government between 2013 and 2017, this paper finds that highly intensive central supervision significantly decreases local firms' earnings management behaviours. Moreover, the effect of central supervision is found to be more pronounced in provinces with severe GDP exaggeration, provinces with local governors facing impending promotion, and firms controlled by the government. These findings suggest that on-site inspections by the central government may alleviate local officials' political incentives and ability to pressure local firms to engage in earnings management. However, the estimation results of timing tests indicate that this monitoring effect is short-lived, calling for a more comprehensive strategy to enhance the supervision of local officials and consequently improve the reliability of firms' financial reporting quality. These findings highlight the importance of addressing the agency problem between central and local governments in curbing firms' earnings manipulation to improve the capital market efficiency of economies characterized by strong government intervention.     

地方政企合谋与信贷资源配置

通过建立地方政企合谋与信贷资源配置的数理模型来研究分权下地方政府干预信贷资源配置服务于地方政府的自身效用，结果表明地方政企合谋是地方政府在直接干预力度减弱的情况下，间接干预金融资源配置的一个重要的途径；且地方政府官员的政治晋升是助长这些干预行为的关键因素。若将发现地方政企合谋与政府地方官员政治晋升与否直接相关，即能起到威慑作用，并能形成最优的防范地方政企合谋契约。     

Do insiders trade on government subsidies?

We examine whether and how insiders trade on government subsidies, a major instrument through which the governments intervene in the economy. Using a novel dataset of government subsidies of Chinese listed firms, we find that net insider purchase increases significantly during the month of subsidy receipt. The effect of subsidies on insider trading is weaker in firms with a more transparent information environment and when subsidies are granted in a more predictable manner. In contrast, the effect is more pronounced for politically connected firms. Further analysis shows that the subsidy-trading relation may reflect both insiders’ informational advantage concerning subsidies and their superior ability to detect mispricing-related opportunities. Our findings provide new insights into the capital market consequences of government subsidies through the lens of insider trading.     

避免亏损的盈余管理程度:上市公司与非上市公司的比较

本文以非上市公司盈余管理程度作为基准,运用参数估计的方法,对股票市场是否提高了公司盈余管理程度的问题进行研究。研究结论显示,1998年至2004年我国上市公司与非上市公司每年都存在避免亏损的盈余管理;在上市公司中,盈余管理公司比例为15.87%,它们提高ROA数据0.0122;在非上市公司中,盈余管理公司比例则只有5.49%,它们提高ROA数据0.0009。上市公司盈余管理频率大约为非上市公司的3倍,平均盈余管理幅度大约为非上市公司的13倍;两类公司盈余管理程度差异随着时间的推移而不断增大,因为非上市公司盈余管理程度在年度上的分布比较稳定,而上市公司盈余管理程度则随着时间的推移而不断增大。研究结论表明,股票市场提高了公司的盈余管理程度。     

Corporate tax,capital structure,and the accessibility of bank loans: Evidence from China

In this paper, we investigate whether listed firms in China adjust their capital structure in response to an increase in the corporate tax rate. Although theories of capital structure suggest that corporate tax is an important determinant of capital structure, how exogenous changes of the tax rate affect firms’ leverage decisions has not been fully explored. We examine a unique circumstance in which the Chinese government increased the corporate tax rate of firms that had previously received local government tax rebates. The evidence indicates that these firms increased their leverage when the corporate tax rate increased. Further investigation suggests that the adjustment of leverage was mostly driven by firms with a high level of access to bank loans.     

Does the type of ownership control matter? Evidence from China’s listed companies

By tracing the identity of large shareholders, we group China’s listed companies into those controlled by state asset management bureaus (SAMBs), state owned enterprises (SOEs) affiliated to the central government (SOECGs), SOEs affiliated to the local government (SOELGs), and Private investors. We argue that these distinct types of owners have different objectives and motivations and this will affect how they exercise their control rights over the firms they invest in. In particular, we contend that private ownership of listed firms in China is not necessarily superior to certain types of state ownership. To test our arguments we investigate the relative efficiency of state versus private ownership of listed firms and the efficiency of various forms of state ownership. The empirical results indicate that the operating efficiency of Chinese listed companies varies across the type of controlling shareholder. SOECG controlled firms perform best and SAMB and Private controlled firms perform worst. SOELG controlled firms are in the middle. The results are consistent with our predictions.     

Firm-level political risk and earnings opacity

Given the recent growing global uncertainties, firms have encountered increasing political risks and responded accordingly to avoid a negative impact on their performance. This study examines the impact of firm-level political risk on corporate earnings opacity among listed U.S. firms. Our empirical results reveal that higher firm-level political risk engenders greater corporate earnings opacity via three channels of market scrutiny, political proximity, and multiple business objectives. Further analyses show that politically risky firms are more prudent in earnings management when they are highly dependent on government spending. The results hold after a wide range of robustness tests. Our findings provide several implications for the management of earnings quality in response to increasing firm-level political risk in the U.S.     

Macroeconomic control, political costs and earnings management: Evidence from Chinese listed real estate companies

Firms in China have faced high political costs during China’s economic transition, because they are affected by macroeconomic policies. However, research to date has offered no consistent conclusions on the relationship between political costs and earnings management in China. This study tests whether real estate firms attempt to decrease earnings during periods of macroeconomic control, using variables related to the national real estate market as proxies for political costs. We find that political costs are negatively related to earnings management in listed real estate firms. In addition, we find that non-state-owned enterprises utilized more income-decreasing accruals during this period. Our results are consistent with the political costs hypothesis.     

Impact of managerial ownership on investment and liquidity constraints: Evidence from Chinese listed companies

We examine the impact of managerial ownership on investment and financial constraints in the context of China. Using the system generalized method of moments estimation of an investment Euler equation, we find that investment decisions are related to managerial ownership in two ways. First, managerial ownership exerts a positive direct effect on corporate investment decisions by aligning management’s incentives with the interests of shareholders. Second, managerial ownership helps to reduce the degree of financial constraints faced by firms, suggesting that managerial ownership acts as a form of credible guarantee to lenders, signaling the quality of investment projects to the capital markets. Our findings suggest that recent policies enacted by the Chinese government, aimed at reforming ownership structure and encouraging managerial ownership in listed firms, help reduce agency costs and asymmetric information; thereby facilitating firms’ investment efficiency. Our findings will be of interest to scholars, practitioners, and policy makers interested in the financial impacts of management-compensation contracts.     

Stock market listing status and real earnings management

This study analyzes real earnings management among privately held versus publicly listed firms. Our first finding is that public firms engage in more earnings management through operating activities. When a clear incentive to manage earnings in a specific direction is present we continue to find that public firms manage their earnings more than private firms. We reason that capital market pressure and ownership characteristics drive our results. Additional analyses reveal that public firms employ more real earnings management as a proportion of the total earnings management strategy. Furthermore, we find that mitigating factors of real earnings management have stronger impact in public firms. This study contributes to literature on non-accrual earnings management and to the broader understanding about the private vis-à-vis public firm reporting and operating behavior. Finally, we contribute by identifying an important societal cost of stock market listing, which is the increase in potentially value-destroying real earnings management.     

The quality of financial reporting in China: An examination from an accounting restatement perspective

This study uses restatements to reveal the poor quality of past accounting information reported within China’s capital market. We show that up to a quarter of listed firms in mainland China explicitly admitted the poor quality of their financial information by restating their previous financial reports between 1999 and 2005. Many of these firms managed their earnings mainly via below-the-line items to avoid losses and promote survival, rather than to support refinancing goals. Such poor-quality financial reporting is more likely among firms that have weaker profitability and a shareholder base that is state-controlled, with diffused ownership and a relatively low proportion of shares held by institutional investors. Furthermore, we find the market to be relatively insensitive to such admissions. Investors’ reactions capture only the earnings information of the current reported year, rather than also reflecting the concurrently revealed correction of past financial reporting. However, the equity market does not completely ignore the earnings information. Investors’ reliance on earnings is merely low relative to the mature US market. These findings demonstrate that accounting credibility in China has low value; providing poor-quality financial information bears little cost because various market mechanisms fail to deter such behavior. Nevertheless, regulators’ ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of financial information and disclosure among listed firms are still fruitful. The frequency of restatements decreased over our sample period, which reinforces the current regulatory prospects and strategies for further improving China’s capital markets.     

Business groups in China

We investigate whether business groups in China act as internal capital markets, in an environment that is characterized by a high level of government intervention, a weak legal system, and an underdeveloped financial market. We study how institutional factors, such as the ultimate owner and level of market development, shape the role of these business groups. We find that business groups help member firms overcome constraints in raising external capital, and that the internal capital market within a business group is more likely to be an alternative financing channel among state-owned firms than among private firms. We also find that the internal capital market is more likely to help those affiliated firms which are private, local government owned relative to those owned by central government, or located in regions with a well-developed institutional environment. We present evidence of the role of business groups in risk sharing among affiliated firms, but find that business group affiliation has no impact on firm accounting performance. This study sheds new light on the theory of the firm and its boundaries, and provides a better understanding of China's rapidly growing economy.     

Tunneling as an incentive for earnings management during the IPO process in China

Using a sample of 185 Chinese IPO firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange during the period 1999–2001, we show that related-party (RP) sales of goods and services could be used opportunistically to manage earnings upwards in the pre-IPO period. We also provide evidence that such behavior may be motivated by the prospect of tunneling opportunities in the post-IPO period, i.e., exploiting economic resources from minority shareholders for the benefit of the parent company. We provide evidence of one such opportunistic tunneling tool: non-repayment by Chinese parent companies of net outstanding corporate loans made to them by their newly listed subsidiaries. Furthermore, we provide evidence in support of our assertion of an association between such tunneling behavior in the post-IPO period and earnings management via abnormal RP sales in the pre-IPO period. Finally, we demonstrate the apparent failure of investors in Chinese IPOs to perceive the link between the two phenomena. The results enhance understanding of the motives for and consequences of earnings manipulation during the IPO process. They highlight a potential additional investment risk facing foreign investors in China’s capital markets as well as in Chinese firms cross-listed in non-Chinese stock exchanges, and have policy implications for China and other emerging markets which need to improve the protection of minority shareholders’ rights.     

Public hedge funds

Hedge funds managed by listed firms significantly under-perform funds managed by unlisted firms. The under-performance is more severe for funds with low manager deltas, poor governance, and no manager co-investment, or those managed by firms whose prices are sensitive to earnings news. Notwithstanding the under-performance, listed asset management firms raise more capital, by growing existing funds and launching new funds post listing, and harvest greater fee revenues than do comparable unlisted firms. The results are consistent with the view that, for asset management firms, going public weakens the alignment between ownership, control, and investment capital, thereby engendering conflicts of interest.     

地方政府财政行为在提升上市公司业绩中的作用探析

本文详细分析了地方政府材政行为在提升上市公司业绩中的动机、手段和作用,发现为了在资本市场中 资源,地方政府积极参与了上市公司的盈余管理,对上市企业进行了大面积的税收优惠和财政补贴,不仅导致了税务竞争现象,还极大地扭曲了会计信息,如果没有地方政府的财政支持,近一半的已配股公司会得不到配股资格。     

Benefits of Downward Earnings Management and Political Connection: Evidence from Government Subsidy and Market Pricing

This paper examines the role of downward earnings management and political connection on the receipt of government subsidies and market pricing of subsidies. Using subsidies data hand-collected from Chinese listed firms over the period 2004–2014, the results show a significantly positive association between downward earnings management and the receipt of government subsidies. The results also reveal that a firm's political connection is conducive to securing subsidies for poor performers, but not for good performers. Market pricing analyses demonstrate that share markets value subsidies positively in general, but the effect is ameliorated in firms conducting downward earnings management. No discernible difference is found between the market pricing of subsidies received by firms with political connections and those without.     

Ultimate Government Control Structures and Firm Value: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

We show that 70% of Chinese listed companies are ultimately controlled by government agencies, thereby indicating that state ownership remains widespread in China's stock markets. Three questions are considered that are related to government control structures and their impact on firm value: (1) how do government agencies maintain their control of listed companies; (2) what are the impacts of different government control structures on firm value; and (3) are these impacts different in local government and central government-controlled firms? We find that the Chinese government controls listed companies directly or indirectly through solely state-owned enterprises (SSOEs). Taking into account the trade-off between political and agency costs, we show that firm value increases when some control rights are decentralized from the government to state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Moreover, decentralization improves significantly the performance of local government- controlled, but not central government-controlled firms.     

会计准则、资本市场监管规则与盈余管理之遏制:来自上市公司债务重组的经验证据

本文利用1999年、2001—2007年上市公司债务重组的数据来研究会计准则和资本市场监管规则在遏制公司盈余管理方面的作用。本文通过分析认为,为遏制上市公司的盈余管理,从上市公司盈余管理的动机端入手更为有效。就上市公司盈余管理主要为满足资本市场监管要求之动机而言,应该从资本市场监管规则的改进入手。而会计准则因其公共合约性质和不完备性,既没有责任也没有能力去遏制上市公司的盈余管理行为。1999年、2001—2007年间上市公司的债务重组行为支持本文的这一观点,来自上市公司债务重组的经验证据显示,是资本市场监管规则而非会计准则在影响和制约着上市公司是否利用债务重组来进行盈余管理。     

Local tax rebates,corporate tax burdens,and firm migration: Evidence from China

Conflicts of interest between local governments and the central administration in China have yielded many local policies that only serve the interests of local governments. The policy of first levying and then rebating taxes is an example of how local governments eschew the national tax regulations to boost local economies rather than national interests. In 2001, the Chinese government announced the termination of local tax rebates, which had some expected outcomes. We find that local governments complied with the new tax policy even though it no longer allowed local governments to grant tax incentives. However, some companies found ways to avoid the greater tax burdens by moving their business registration locations to tax havens. We also find that firms controlled by local governments were less likely to change registration locations. Our study examines the national tax regulation in China and explores how tax rules influence company decisions. In addition, we show that non-tax incentives, such as local economic development, may also influence company decisions.     

Institutional Environment,Blockholder Characteristics and Ownership Concentration in China

Using a sample of China's A-share listed companies for the period 2001-2004, this paper investigates the influence of institutional environment variables, including the process of marketization, level of local government intervention, and local legal environment, on blockholder characteristics and ownership concentration, and the relation between the endogeneity of ownership structure and institutional environment. Our results indicate that the effects of these variables on ownership concentration are (1) positive for listed companies controlled by state asset management bureaus affiliated with local governments, (2) negative for listed companies controlled by state-owned enterprises affiliated with local governments and (3) unclear for listed private companies. These variables also positively affect the degree of privatization of listed companies in China.