资本市场开放与企业真实盈余管理——基于“陆港通”的经验证据

资本市场开放不仅是扩大国际融资、更好地利用国际金融市场的需要,而且对我国资本市场发育和上市公司行为具有多重外部治理效应。本文借助我国内地与香港资本市场互联互通机制这一准自然实验,研究资本市场开放对企业真实盈余管理的影响。研究发现:(1)总体上,“陆港通”机制的实施显著降低了标的公司真实盈余管理程度。(2)委托代理问题是企业进行盈余管理的重要原因,而“陆港通”机制开通后,能够缓解标的公司代理矛盾,进而约束管理层的真实盈余管理行为。(3)当资本市场信息环境改善、管理层面临较大股票抛售压力以及大股东监督力度较强时,“陆港通”抑制企业真实盈余管理行为的治理效果更强。本文结果表明,资本市场开放有助于提高我国上市公司财务信息披露质量及公司治理水平。

Stock Market Liberalization and Real Earnings Management:Evidence from Mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect

Stock market liberalization is an inevitable way for China to raise its voice in the world's finaneial market and promote national economic deve lopment.In recent years,the liberalization of China's stock market has been accelerated significantly,it helps improve the regulations and rules in our country,and promote the integration of domestic and international capital markets as well.However,China's capital market is still an emerging market with low level of risk tolerance,which means we must open the capital market in a sound and orderly manner.The authorities have carried out a series of explorations and innovations in order to explore a capital market liberalization path suitable for China's national conditions,and the Mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect is one of them.The Mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect has realized two-way opening between the stock markets of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong,including two parts:the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect since 2014 and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect since 2016.Using the setting of the M ainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect,some researchers have already studied its impact on stock market and corporate govemance,such as stock price informativeness,stock price crash risk,corporate investment efficiency and corporate innovation.Besides,we still want to know whether stock market liberalization can improve the transparency of China's capital market.Accrual-based earnings management and real activity-based earnings management are the two choices for managers to meet certain earnings targets,and early studies focus more on accrual-based earnings management.However,when firms are in a strict supervision environment,accrual earnings management is difficult to.implement,then managers use real earnings management instead.So in this paper,we use real activity-based earnings management to measure the quality of corporate accounting information disclosure,and we are wondering whether stock market liberalization is an effective corporate governance mechanism to restrain real earnings management.In this paper,we use Chinese A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2019 as samples,and conduct a time-varying difference-in-difference model to study the impact of stock market liberalization on real earnings management.The results show that the Mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect significantly reduces real earnings management of target firms.In detail,stock market liberalization alleviates the agency problem of target firms,and then restrains real earnings management.We can expand the govemance effect of stock market liberalization by improving the external information environment,putting pressure on managers by selling stock,and increasing the supervision enthusiasm of major shareholders.Stock market liberalization helps to reduce the degree of information asymmetry,improve corporate governance and optimize the ability to allocating capital of China's stock market.The main contributions of this paper are as follows.Firstly,different from previous researchers based on accrual earnings management,we find that M ainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect is an effective external governance mechanism to restrain real earnings management.The conclusion expands the microeconomic consequences of stock market liberalization.Secondly,this paper finds that target firms of the M ainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect do not replace accrual-based earnings management with real earnings management due to the strict supervision of foreign investors,but provide higher quality information disclosure by alleviating agency problem.This proves the positive guiding role of opening to China's capital market and the participants,and provides empirical evidence for further deepening stock market liberalization.Finally,this paper finds that transparent information environment and effective shareholder supervision are the key to promoting the governance effect of stock market liberalization.This is of enlightening significance for China to further improve the construction of market supporting system,enhance corporate governance and enhance the transparency of capital market.