产业政策、盈余信息质量与审计意见

宏观经济政策对微观企业行为影响是当前经济和管理学领域的一个热点话题。文章以2006—2015年沪深两市A股上市公司为样本,理论分析与实证检验了宏观产业政策对微观企业审计意见的影响及其内在机理。实证结果发现,产业政策显著降低了受支持企业被出具非标准审计意见的概率,并且路径分析揭示,产业政策对审计意见的影响通过提高受支持企业的盈余信息质量得以实现,在通过双重差分(DID)控制潜在的内生性之后,仍表明产业政策能显著提高受支持企业的盈余信息质量。进一步探究其内在机理发现,产业政策会降低受支持企业的融资约束程度,从而降低企业市场融资动机下的盈余操纵行为,进而提升其盈余信息质量;同时产业政策会通过降低受支持企业大股东的掏空行为,从而降低其为掩盖掏空而进行的盈余操纵,进而提升盈余信息质量。这些发现揭示了产业政策影响审计意见的内在机理,不但为产业政策的积极经济后果提供了支持证据,也丰富了审计意见研究的相关理论。

Industrial Policy,Earnings Quality and Audit Opinion

The impact of macroeconomic policy on micro-enterprise behavior is a hot topic in the field of economics and management. Taking A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2006 to 2015 as samples, this paper theoretically and empirically examines the impact of macro-industrial policy on auditing opinions of micro-enterprises. The empirical results show that industrial policy significantly reduces the probability that supported enterprises will be issued non-standard audit opinions, and path analysis reveals that the impact of industrial policy on audit opinions can be achieved by improving the quality of accounting information of supported enterprises. After controlling the potential endogeneity through building difference in differences model (DID), it is still found that industrial policy can significantly improve the quality of accounting information of supported enterprises. By further exploring into its intrinsic mechanism, we find that industrial policy can reduce the degree of financing constraints of supported enterprises, and thus improve the quality of accounting information. Industrial policy will reduce the tunneling behavior of the major shareholders of the supported enterprises, thereby reducing the manipulation motivation of the tunneling behavior and improving the quality of accounting information. The above conclusions reveal two paths of industrial policy to audit opinions. It not only provides supporting evidence for the positive economic consequences of industrial policy, but also enriches the economic connotation of audit opinions. Accordingly, this paper puts forward the importance of studying the relationship between macroeconomic policy and audit opinions. It holds that audit research should break through existing limitations and be placed in a larger macro-background.