会计稳健性研究述评

越来越多的研究表明,会计稳健性是财务报告最重要的特征。本文系统地评论了会计稳健性研究的最新内容。第一方面为会计稳健性的不同计量方法及各种计量方法之间存在的关系,第二方面为稳健性起因的最新研究,尤其是契约对企业会计稳健性的影响,第三方面为会计稳健性的经济后果,包括会计稳健性对资本成本的影响以及对企业真实经济活动的影响。文章最后指出了会计稳健性未来研究的方向。     

会计稳健性一定降低债券融资成本吗？——来自我国信用债市场的证据

债券市场作为多层次资本市场体系的重要组成,其持续健康发展对于优化市场资源配置功能至关重要。已有文献在研究企业会计信息质量与债务融资成本的关系时,普遍得出会计稳健性可以有效降低债务融资成本的结论。与之不同,本文以2010—2019年我国上市公司在沪深交易所及银行间市场发行的信用债为样本,实证研究发现：债券发行人的会计稳健性越高,其债券发行的信用利差也越高,意味着发债企业的会计稳健性将增加其债券融资成本。进一步研究发现,未来的债券合约重新谈判成本越高,发债企业的会计稳健性对其债券融资成本的不利影响越强,支持了债券合约的重新谈判成本是影响会计稳健性与债券融资成本之间关系的重要因素。上述研究结论深化了学术界对会计稳健性与债务融资成本之间关系的认识,亦为政府监管部门规范债券市场运行以提升会计信息质量在市场资源配置中的作用提供了政策启示。     

市场化进程、自愿性信息披露和权益资本成本

基于市场化进程中政府对企业干预程度的差异,本文研究市场化进程对自愿性信息披露与权益资本成本关系的影响。研究发现,市场化进程对自愿性信息披露与权益资本成本的负相关关系起加强作用;更进一步地,在市场化进程较低的地区,受较强的政府干预的影响,国有上市公司比非国有上市公司自愿性信息披露与权益资本成本的相关关系更弱,相反,在市场化进程较高的地区,政府会减少对企业的干扰,非国有上市公司相比于国有上市公司对这种影响的弹性更大,表现在非国有上市公司比国有上市公司更能通过披露较多的自愿性信息来降低权益资本成本。     

会计稳健性研究的理论回顾与展望——基于契约观和信息观的视角

会计稳健性持续而普遍存在的经验证据激发了大量正式的理论研究。通过系统梳理,这些文献主要包括两个方面:一是从契约观的角度解释会计稳健性存在的经济需求,二是从信息观的角度预测会计稳健性对权益估价以及资本市场定价效率的潜在影响。本文进一步对会计稳健性理论研究的未来方向做出展望。     

混合所有制下的财务管理

混合所有制是指资本权益与劳动者权益共同结合后的所有权形式,国有企业在实现混合所有制后,传统的财务会计该如何向现代的管理会计发展和提升,便也成为目前面临的主要问题。因此,本文就站立于国有电影集团的角度,探讨混合所有制下财务管理的有效措施,以供参考。     

董事高管责任保险与权益资本成本——基于信息披露质量与高管风险偏好渠道

基于2007—2020年沪深A股上市公司数据，实证探究了公司购买董事高管责任保险的行为与其权益资本成本之间的关系。主检验相关结果显示，公司的权益资本成本将随着公司购买董责险行为的发生而降低。使用PSM和IV估计进行稳健性检验，排除样本选择性偏误等内生性问题的影响后结论依然成立。通过中介效应分析了董责险影响权益资本成本的作用路径，证实了信息披露质量是董责险影响权益资本成本的一种途径。异质性分析结果表明，严监管环境更有利于董责险“外部监管者”职能的发挥。     

终极控股股东行为与会计稳健性的实证研究

本文以2003—2009年沪深A股主板上市公司为样本,采用配对检验和多元回归的方法,研究了终极控股股东与会计稳健性有效需求不足假说和利益侵占假说。研究发现:(1)终极控股股东控制权比率越高的组,会计稳健性越小,即或有控股样本公司会计稳健性高于相对控股组样本公司,而相对控股样本组公司又高于绝对控股组样本公司;(2)终极控股股东控制权与所有权分离程度越大,会计稳健性越低;(3)终极控股股东为国有性质的公司会计稳健性高于民营性质的公司。本文的研究深化了我们对新兴市场国家制度环境下会计稳健性理解,同时对进一步规范会计稳健性相关的制度安排和监管具有重要的启示和政策意义。     

会计风险规避与稳健性原则

会计稳健性作为一项会计信息的质量特征或会计原则。要求尽可能确认不确定性的费用而不确认收益。按照不高于历史成本的公允价值进行会计报告。因而建立在稳健性原则基础上的资产倩息是不高于历史成本的。其报告的费用不会低于其已经发生的费用，企业所有者权益要比账面上反映出来的结果更切实可靠。可以有效地制约利润的超额分配，有利于保全资本。所以各国的会计规范均要求企业会计要谨慎处理会计事务。以期通过对原始成本计量模式的松动来体现会计信息相关性的要求。国际会计准则委员会（IASC）在其发布的《编报财务报表框架》中，明确地将稳健性列为会计信息的质量特征之一。我国财政部新发布的《企业会计准则》也明确地把稳健性原则作为财务会计的基本原则之一。     

会计稳健性、信息不对称与股权融资成本

本文以沪深股市2006—2015年非金融行业上市公司为初始样本,结合我国的产权性质,考察了会计稳健性与股权融资成本的关系,并采用中介效应分析方法,探讨了会计稳健性对股权融资成本的可能影响路径。研究发现:第一,会计稳健性与股权融资成本负相关,信息不对称水平是会计稳健性影响股权融资成本的一个中介变量。第二,相对于国有企业,非国有企业会计稳健性对股权融资成本的降低作用更加显著。     

非控股国有股权与民营企业权益资本成本

缓解民营企业融资困境是推动非公有制经济高质量发展的关键环节。本文研究国有股东参股对民营企业权益资本成本的影响，发现：非控股国有股权较高的民营企业，权益资本成本显著更低；进一步地，对于政治和经济资源较为匮乏、公司治理风险更高的民营企业，上述效应显著更强，表明非控股国有股权能够帮助民营企业获取更多的政治和经济资源，提升民营企业公司治理水平，从而降低权益资本成本；异质性分析表明，在民营企业所属地区政府对地方资源配置影响更强、民营企业对当地就业贡献更大的情况下，非控股国有股权降低民营企业权益资本成本的积极效应更强。本文拓展了异质产权股东治理和企业权益资本成本的相关研究，为全面深化“双向”混合所有制改革和促进非公有制经济健康发展提供了政策参考。     

Accounting Conservatism and the Cost of Capital: An International Analysis

This paper examines the role of conditional accounting conservatism in mitigating the cost of equity and debt capital in an international setting. The findings are that firms domiciled in countries with more conservative financial reporting systems have lower cost of equity and debt capital. The paper further explores the cross‐sectional variation of the above relationships, finding that the negative association between conditional conservatism and the cost of equity and debt capital is more pronounced in countries with stronger legal enforcement, suggesting a complementary role between conservatism and legal institutions in capital markets. In addition, the paper finds that conservatism only reduces the cost of debt in countries where accounting‐based covenants are widely used, consistent with the argument that conditional conservatism improves the efficiency of debt contracts via accelerating covenant violations.     

Publicly traded versus privately held: implications for conditional conservatism in bank accounting

Compared with privately held banks, publicly traded banks face greater agency costs because of greater separation of ownership and control but enjoy greater benefits from access to the equity capital market. Differences in control and capital market access influence public versus private banks’ accounting. We predict and find that public banks exhibit greater degrees of conditional conservatism (asymmetric timeliness of the recognition of losses versus gains in accounting income) than private banks. We predict and find that public banks recognize more timely earnings declines, less timely earnings increases, and larger and more timely loan losses. Although public ownership gives managers greater ability and incentive to exercise income-increasing accounting, our findings show that the demand for conservatism dominates within public banks and that the demand for conservatism is greater among public banks than private banks. Our results provide insights for accounting and finance academics, bank managers, auditors, and regulators concerning the effects of ownership structure on conditional conservatism in banks’ financial reporting.

Disclosure Interactions and the Cost of Equity Capital: Evidence From the Spanish Continuous Market

Abstract:  The purpose of this paper is to provide some new evidence on the relationship between disclosure and the cost of equity capital. We propose a new specification for the empirical test based on the idea that in the previous models one crucial variable was missing: accounting policy choice. We test our theoretical hypothesis using a sample of Spanish firms quoted on the Spanish continuous market from 1999 to 2002. We adopt the ex-ante approach to measure the cost of equity capital, taking analysts predictions as a proxy for expected earnings. As an explanatory variable we use an index measuring annual report disclosure quality. This measure of disclosure is combined with a proxy for the accounting policy choice of the firm. We measure firms' conservatism using the modified Jones model of Dechow et al. (1995) to estimate discretionary accruals. Our results confirm that the relationship between disclosure and cost of capital is affected by the choice of accounting policy.     

Dividend Taxes and Implied Cost of Equity Capital

We estimate firm‐level implied cost of equity capital based on recent advances in accounting and finance research and examine the effect of dividend taxes on the cost of equity capital. We investigate whether dividend taxes affect firms' cost of capital by testing the relation between the implied cost of equity capital and a measure of the tax‐penalized portion of dividend yield, which we define as the product of dividend yield and the dividend tax penalty. The results generally support the dividend tax capitalization hypothesis. We find a positive relation between the implied cost of equity capital and the tax‐penalized portion of dividend yield that is decreasing in aggregate institutional ownership, our proxy for tax‐advantaged investors. The evidence in this study adds to the understanding of the effect of investor‐level taxes on equity value.     

机构持股与会计稳健性

以我国A股具有机构持股的上市公司2007～2011年的数据为样本,采用Basu(1997)的盈余-回报率模型研究了机构持股对会计稳健性的影响。结果表明:机构持股比例越高,会计稳健性越好。考虑到产权性质后,国有公司的机构持股比例与会计稳健性具有显著的正相关关系,而在非国有公司中并不显著。另外,高成长性公司中机构持股对会计稳健性的影响显著为正,但在低成长性公司这一结果不显著。     

Conditional conservatism and cost of capital

We empirically test the association between conditional conservatism and cost of equity capital. Conditional conservatism imposes stronger verification requirements for the recognition of economic gains than economic losses, resulting in earnings that reflect losses faster than gains. This asymmetric reporting of gains and losses is predicted to lower firm cost of equity capital by increasing bad news reporting precision, thereby reducing information uncertainty (Guay and Verrecchia 2007) and the volatility of future stock prices (Suijs 2008). Using standard asset-pricing tests, we find a significant negative relation between conditional conservatism and excess average stock returns over the period 1975–2003. This evidence is corroborated by further tests on the association between conditional conservatism and measures of implied cost of capital derived from analysts’ forecasts.     

劳动者权益会计理论述评

本文主要探讨了劳动者权益会计与人力资源会计的逻辑关联及学科归属、人力资本主体的范围、人力资本产权特征以及人力资本所有者是否及如何参与企业所有权分配这些基础性问题,并在此基础上对近年来劳动者权益会计相关研究中的会计确认、账户设置与核算进行简要评述。     

Determinants and consequences of voluntary disclosure in an emerging market: Evidence from China

In this paper we examine empirically the determinants of voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of Chinese listed firms that issue both domestic and foreign shares and determine if the cost of debt capital is related to the extent of voluntary disclosure. We find the level of voluntary disclosure is positively related to the proportion of state ownership, foreign ownership, firm performance measured by return on equity, and reputation of the engaged auditor. There is no evidence, however, that companies benefit from extensive voluntary disclosure by having a lower cost of debt capital.     

Discussion of “Using earnings forecasts to simultaneously estimate firm-specific cost of equity and long-term growth”

Accounting-based valuation models allow us to develop rigorous estimates of either value or the expected rate of return on equity capital (i.e., ERR) without making steady-state forecasts that rely on ad hoc assumptions about dividend policy. Hence, these models have great potential. Their ultimate usefulness, however, depends on the extent to which users of them make assumptions about future residual income that are consistent with the underlying accounting. Nekrasov and Ogneva contribute by developing a methodology that allows us to integrate information about accounting attributes such as conservatism into our estimates of the growth rate in residual income. Hence, their methodology can be used to improve our understanding of the role that conservatism plays in determining growth. This, in turn, improves our ability to estimate key parameters such as value and the expected rate of return on equity capital.