内部控制、治理环境与投资者保护

本文研究了内部控制质量对投资者保护的影响,以及不同治理环境对内部控制治理功能的影响。研究发现:内部控制质量的提高,或更为充分的内控信息披露有助于抑制大股东资金占用,有助于抑制经理人与股东之间的代理成本;治理环境越差的地区,内部控制治理效应越高。这说明,对于投资者保护较弱的地区,内部控制可能成为补偿弱投资者保护负面影响的一种替代机制。本文研究意味着,近年来推出的内部控制相关制度起到了积极的效果;此外,完善上市公司内部控制,对于治理环境较差、投资者利益得不到有效保障的地区显得尤为重要。     

投资者保护、终极控制人性质与会计信息可比性

通过测度中国上市公司的会计信息可比性值,实证考察了投资者保护对可比性的影响.结果显示:投资者保护程度与会计信息可比性显著正相关,即在我国投资者保护程度较强的地区,企业管理层能更严格遵守会计准则规定,会计信息可比性较高.进一步检验发现,相对于国有控股公司,投资者保护程度与会计信息可比性的正相关关系在非国有控股公司中更加显著,因此,投资者保护制度对国有控股公司管理层会计行为的约束能力较弱.稳健性检验结果发现,这种正相关关系在中央政府控股公司与地方政府控股公司间不存在显著差别.     

投资者保护、关联交易与公司绩效——来自长三角A股上市公司的经验证据

以2007~2009年长三角地区A股上市公司为研究样本,以投资者保护为切入点,分析投资者保护、关联交易对公司治理效率的影响。研究表明:长三角地区上市公司普遍存在控股股东,董事长来源于控股股东的公司关联交易明显多于其他公司,总经理来自控股股东的公司关联交易不明显,关联交易与投资者保护程度负相关,投资者保护程度与公司治理正相关。     

2004年深市上市公司年报会计问题分析

财务会计信息是年度报告的核心,会计问题也就是投资者关注的年报焦点.本文从审计意见、会计政策、会计估计和会计差错四个角度分析深市上市公司2004年年度报告普遍存在的会计问题.本文认为,部分审计意见类型值得商榷,上市公司的会计政策运用能力尚待改进,滥用会计估计和会计差错调整比较严重.     

股权集中、股权制衡与会计稳健性

运用我国A股上市公司2002～2004年的数据,本文研究上市公司两个股权结构变量——股权集中度与股权制衡度——对会计盈余信息质量特征之一的会计稳健性的影响。研究表明,股权集中度高的上市公司将不利于会计盈余信息质量的提高,少数大股东可能通过及时确认“好消息”以及滞后确认“坏消息”的方式来掩盖对中小股东的“掏空”行为,会计盈余稳健性较低;而股权制衡度较高的上市公司会计盈余就有较高的稳健性,这将有利于抑制少数大股东对会计盈余信息的操纵从而保护中小投资者财富不受侵占。     

新会计准则及其对证券市场的深远影响

2006年2月,财政部重新制定并颁布了新的企业会计准则,规定从2007年1月1日起率先在上市公司范围内执行。从内容上看,新会计准则充分考虑到了成熟、发达资本市场对高质量财务会计信息的需求,兼顾了财务会计信息的真实性和公允性,同时从保护投资者利益出发,着眼于提高财务会计信息     

投资者保护和基金投资业绩

本文从基金持仓股特征出发,研究了上市公司投资者保护与基金投资业绩的关系。由于投资者保护影响公司的盈利能力以及投资者获取信息的难易程度,基金在投资时更加偏好于投资者保护好的上市公司的股票。使用我国上市公司基金持股比例的数据,本文证实了这一结论。更为重要的是,本文发现对于有能力的基金,他们会投资于投资者保护比较差的上市公司的股票,从而获得更高的投资业绩。     

并购重组盈利补偿是否有效保护上市公司及中小投资者利益?——基于博盈投资非公开发行与资产收购案例

随着国内上市公司并购重组日益频繁,构建合理的机制制约并购重组中的非理性行为,保护上市公司及中小投资者利益显得尤为重要。目前盈利补偿成为A股上市公司并购重组中保护上市公司和中小投资者利益而普遍采用的机制。本文以博盈投资非公开发行与资产收购为案例,分析盈利补偿机制对上市公司和中小投资者利益影响。研究结果表明盈利补偿机制在承诺期内确实对上市公司和投资者利益保护起到了一定的作用,但是盈利补偿机制只是一种并购失败的短期补偿救济措施,应通过延长盈利承诺期限、加强对违约行为的惩罚力度等措施进行优化。本文研究深化了盈利补偿机制研究层次,对指导并购重组实践具有重要意义。     

两种基本财务会计信息需求与供给的矛盾和协调

投资者为满足决策需要和增强契约有效性产生了两种基本的信息需求,即有关公司未来业绩和风险的信息和与经理努力程度高度相关的业绩衡量信息。现实环境的财务会计无法同时在一份报告中完美地提供上述信息,对两种基本信息需求的权衡和报告成为经理利益驱动的会计选择结果。管制和准则在一定程度上协调了投资者和经理之间的会计信息的供需矛盾。认识我国当前的财务会计及其报告的环境,对会计研究者和准则制定者来说都具有重大的意义。     

财会动态

正上市公司会计投资者保护指数发布9月26日,北京工商大学发布2014上市公司会计投资者保护指数。本年度北京工商大学对所有A股上市公司进行了评价,包括主板、中小企业板和创业板上市公司,共2515家。中国上市公司主板数量占近60%,其中深市主板470家,沪市主板944家。与2012年相比,中小板和创业板公司增多,分别增加48家和63家。指数显示,中国上市公司2014年度的投资者保护均值为54.45分,其中管理控制的保护力     

投资者保护研究综述：财务会计信息的作用

资本市场的信息不对称不仅阻碍了资源的有效配置,而且妨碍了投资者获取投资回报。财务会计信息在投资者保护中具有重要作用,它可以减轻由于信息不对称带来的两个基本问题:信息问题和代理问题。本文提出一个扩展的框架分析财务会计信息在缓解信息不对称、促进投资者保护中的作用机制,以及公司层面、市场层面和国家层面一些重要因素对这种作用机制的影响。在此基础之上,本文综述了近期国外研究中的主要相关文献,并为未来研究提出建议。     

The effect of earnings quality and country-level institutions on the value relevance of earnings

This study investigates the relationship between the value relevance of earnings and earnings quality across countries. We find that there is a stronger relationship between earnings quality and the value relevance of earnings in countries with high investor protection than in countries with weak investor protection. We also find that the association between the value relevance of earnings and earnings quality is higher when a country’s information environment is less opaque. Overall, our study documents evidence on international differences in the ability of stock prices to capture useful accounting information, consistent with the notion that the returns-earnings association reflects not only the quality of accounting earnings but also the informativeness of stock prices.     

Relationship Between Controlling Shareholders’ Participation in Share Pledging and Accounting Conservatism in China

This study examines the relationship between controlling shareholders’ participation in share pledging and accounting conservatism in the Chinese stock market. Share pledging introduces risks to controlling shareholders and leads to severe information asymmetry between controlling shareholders and outside minority shareholders. This, in turn, results in competing incentives with regard to financial reporting. We find that controlling shareholders’ participation in share pledging negatively affects accounting conservatism, especially for firms located in regions with weak legal enforcement and poor investor protection. Our study shows that controlling shareholders’ share‐pledging behaviour negatively influences firms’ reporting quality, especially in areas with weak legal systems.     

The Effect of IFRS Adoption and Investor Protection on Earnings Quality Around the World

This study examines the effects of mandatory IFRS adoption and investor protection on the quality of accounting earnings in forty-six countries around the globe. The results suggest that earnings quality increases for mandatory IFRS adoption when a country's investor protection regime provides stronger protection. This study extends the current literature that shows that accounting practices are influenced by country-level macro settings. The results highlight the importance of investor protection for financial reporting quality and the need for regulators to design mechanisms that limit managers' earnings management practices.     

Is knowledge powerful? Evidence from financial education and earnings quality

Previous studies emphasize the importance of investor legal protection on financial reporting quality. We argue that investors’ awareness of their legal rights and understanding of the financial products play complementary roles. Financially well-educated investors are more likely to be able to understand investment-related information and less likely to be tricked, hence can pressure managers to eschew misappropriate behavior. This paper explores the role of investor financial education as a corporate governance mechanism in the context of earnings quality. Using data from 43 countries during the sample period of 1994–2012, we find that earnings quality is higher in countries with better financial education after controlling for various institutional environments. Interestingly, the positive effect of financial education on earnings quality exists only in countries with stronger investor legal protection, indicating a complementary role of financial education. Our study provides evidence on the role of financial education in investor protection.     

Accounting practice,fiscal decentralization and corruption

In prior studies, accounting and decentralization corruption solutions have so far been analysed in isolation. In this article, we connect these two strands of literature on corruption. Understanding this connection is important because weak financial accounting and reporting systems can inhibit monitoring incentives and thus reduce decentralization benefits in countering corruption. We argue that the effectiveness of decentralization as an anti-corruption barrier is complemented by the quality of the accounting practice in a country. Using multiple sources of data, we find that decentralization has a positive and increasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with a high-quality accounting practice. In contrast, decentralization has a negative and decreasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with weak-quality accounting practices. These findings are robust to alternative measures of accounting, decentralization and corruption and to endogeneity tests. Our findings demonstrate the crucial information role of accounting in enhancing decentralization monitoring mechanisms and in thereby reducing corruption.     

Does mandatory IFRS adoption improve information quality in low investor protection countries?

We examine the effect of mandatory IFRS adoption on the information quality of financial reporting in France, Germany and Sweden. These three Western European civil law countries are characterized as low investor protection by the World Economic Forum's 2012/2013 Global Competitiveness Report. Using data for 2003 and 2011, we find significant improvement in both forecast accuracy and forecast dispersion following mandatory IFRS adoption in all three countries. Furthermore, the effect on information quality is greater the lower the strength of investor protection. These results suggest that mandatory IFRS adoption in low investor protection countries leads to an improvement in information quality. A tentative implication of the results is that standard setters should not delay IFRS adoption pending regulators implementing a high investor protection.     

Accounting development in Pakistan

This paper examines the origins, growth, and the development of accounting practices and disclosures in Pakistan and the factors that influenced them. We trace the early days of accounting in the Indian subcontinent and discuss the British colonial influence. We examine the development of accounting in Pakistan through three eras: Independence through 1971, Post 1971-1984, and 1984 to present. We describe how the colonial past and later the international financial institutions such as the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund played key roles in shaping accounting and reporting practices of the country. Pakistan's adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards as national standards has not led to improvement in the quality of financial reporting. We argue that Pakistan, even though classified as a common law country in literature, exhibits most of the properties of code law countries. We conclude that lack of investor protection (e.g., minority rights protection, insider-trading protection), judicial inefficiencies, and weak enforcement mechanisms are more critical to explaining the state of financial reporting in Pakistan than are cultural factors. This insight has policy implications for developing countries that are making efforts to improve the quality of the financial reporting of their business entities.     

The Real and Accrual-based Earnings Management Behaviors: Evidence from the Split Share Structure Reform in China

This paper investigates the earnings management activities in Chinese listed firms and the impact of the split share structure reform (SSSREF). We demonstrate that Chinese listed firms exhibited a long-term positive relationship between real and accrual-based earnings management activities over the 2002–2011 period. This reflects the environment of weak investor protection and lack of effective corporate governance in China. Our results also indicate that the SSSREF in China has not fundamentally improved firms' quality of financial information. This may be because ownership concentration remains high. However, it is of interest that the reform has created an incentive alignment effect exogenously. We find that firms' use of discretionary accruals was constrained, and they have consequently shifted to less detectable and under-scrutinized real earnings activities after the reform. This shift is similar to that seen with the direct regulatory changes in accounting reporting rules on firms' earnings behaviors in developed countries where the investor protection environment is strong. We suggest that firms' shifting between the accrual and real-based earnings methods is an overlooked area for investors to consider in the emerging market context, and may require the attention of regulators.