稳健会计信息的信号传递作用研究

【作者】 顾鸣润；

【导师】 田存志；

【作者基本信息】 昆明理工大学 ， 管理科学与工程， 2013， 博士

【摘要】 会计稳健主义作为会计信息系统确认和计量的传统原则已经存在于各国会计实务中几个世纪。一般认为,会计稳健原则在会计实务中广泛地运用对于解决现代公司机制设置中“天然”存在的信息非对称问题、保护投资者特别是债权人的利益以及提高契约的签订效率扮演了重要的角色。鉴于会计稳健原则对会计理论和会计实务持续产生着深远和重要地影响,本文首先基于现代企业的委托代理理论分析框架及信息经济学中的信号传递思想,从公司治理的角度分析了公司治理的有效程度如何影响管理者关于稳健会计政策地选择。本文分析了资本市场中高质量(预期经营前景好)的上市公司主动地引入有成本的扭曲(会计信息稳健度),以此作为媒介间接地向外部投资者发送管理者关于上市公司预期经营状况的私人信息以区分于市场中质量差(预期经营业绩不好)的公司。国内学者以我国资本市场为背景的相关研究基本一致地表明我国上市公司披露的财务报告是具有一定会计稳健性特征的。因此,本文基于中国资本市场实证地研究了中国上市公司所披露的财务报告中会计信息整体的稳健程度与预期的资产盈利水平的相关关系,会计信息稳健程度的信息含量以及会计信息稳健度与预期盈利水平相关性的影响因素等一系列问题,实证结果基本支持了本文关于公司治理的有效程度对管理者稳健会计政策选择影响的理论分析结果。具体而言,首先,本文借鉴Spence (1974)的信号传递模型的思想,在Bagnoli和watts (2005)提出的稳健会计信息信号传递的理论模型基础上进一步地拓展了关于稳健会计信息信号传递的分析,即本文考虑了公司治理机制对管理者信息披露行为的约束作用从而影响到管理者通过报告稳健地会计信息做为信号发送的行为。分析结果表明：若公司治理机制与会计稳健性间具有互补的关系,则在公司治理相对不健全时,那些预期经营业绩好的公司为降低信息非对称程度,管理者会相应地报告稳健的会计信息；但是,对于那些预期经营业绩差的公司选择模仿业绩好的公司报告过于稳健会计信息的成本巨大以至于不得不放弃模仿好公司,此时,市场存在分离均衡,即会计信息稳健度具有信息传递的作用。接着,本文实证地考察了会计信息稳健程度是否在公开披露的盈余信息的基础上向市场传递了增量的信息,研究结果显示上市公司管理者稳健地报告会计盈余并不会导致会计信息的扭曲,而是向外部投资者提供了更多关于公司当期和预期盈余的增量信息。然后,本文以2004-2011年期间在上海证券交易所和深圳证券交易所A股上市的公司作为主要研究样本。首先针对当期会计盈余信息的稳健程度与公司预期的资产收益率之间的相关关系进行了实证研究,研究结果表明,样本公司滞后一期的会计信息稳健程度与当期经营业绩间具有统计意义上显著的正相关关系。再接着,本文考察了公司治理与稳健会计信息的相关关系,研究发现在我国资本市场,管理者对于稳健会计信息、的披露的一个重要的原因来自于公司治理的约束作用,即公司治理综合水平越高的上市公司其披露的会计信息的稳健程度越高。最后,论文结合我国资本市场的法律、制度背景,主要从上市公司的产权性质、外部审计质量、高管持股等三个方面实证地检验了影响上市公司管理者通过会计信息稳健程度发送信号的因素。全文共由七章构成：第一章为绪论；包括研究背景与研究问题、研究内容、研究方法、技术路线以及论文的主要改进和创新之处：第二章为研究所涉及到的主要概念的界定、文献评述与制度背景分析；主要针对稳健会计原则的起源、定义和理论解释进行了文献回顾。同时,结合我国资本市场的法律、制度背景分析了中国上市公司管理者通过间接媒介进行信号传递的动机和可能性。这为我们进一步地理解稳健会计原则长期存在于各国会计实务提供一种可能的理论解释。第三章为基于公司治理视角的稳健会计信息信号传递的机理分析：本章基于经典的信号传递模型,参照Venugopalan (2001)、Gigler和Hemmer (2001)、 Kwon等(2001)的分析方法,进一步拓展了Bagnoli和Watts (2005)关于稳健会计信息的信号传递作用的分析。本章从公司治理的效果好、坏的角度分情况讨论了管理者的稳健会计报告均衡策略。第四章为会计信息稳健度的信息含量研究；管理者最终披露的会计盈余是受其具体财务报告策略选择的影响的,管理者主观地具体会计政策选择有可能导致报告盈余信息地扭曲；也有可能向资本市场传递信息。本章基于中国上市公司的财务数据并使用Collins、Kothari等(1994)所提出的度量股票价格对预期盈余反映程度的预期盈余反应系数实证地对稳健会计信息的信息含量问题进行了实证检验。第五章为上市公司会计信息稳健度与预期盈利能力的相关性研究；以往对稳健会计原则的研究主要关注了上市公司使用稳健的会计信息能够带给报告主体哪些潜在“收益”,而一定程度地忽略了过于稳健的财务报告策略对于公司是有“成本”(如：证券市场价格下跌的风险)的。本章认为不同上市公司的管理者在综合权衡稳健地报告会计信息可能带来的潜在“收益”与“成本”之后,理性选择最优的会计信息稳健度作为财务报告策略。本章的研究提供了会计信息稳健度与预期盈利能力相关关系的实证证据。第六章是公司治理机制对会计信息稳健度的业绩预测作用的影响的实证研究；本章主要基于公司微观层面研究具体的公司治理机制的设置对企业管理者稳健会计处理方法选择的利益动机的约束作用。首先,本章基于中国资本市场实证地检验了稳健会计信息与公司治理的相关关系,接着借鉴Spence (1974)的信号传递模型的思想,从公司治理的角度实证地检验了产权性质、外部审计质量和高管持股比例等具体的公司治理机制对管理者利用稳健会计信息信号传递行为的影响。第七章为全文的结论部分。本章总结了主要的研究结论与启示,针对研究的问题提出了相关的政策建议,最后对研究存在的不足和局限性进行了讨论。更多还原

【Abstract】 As a traditional requirement of accounting information system, accounting conservatism principle has been existed in many countires’accounting practices for centuries. It was accepted by lots of countries in the world that the accounting conservatism was a fundamental accounting principle and dominated the formation of accounting standards. It was generally agreed that the application of conservatism in accounting practice may contribute to the decrease of the information asymmetry, to protect the investors especially the creditor or lenders and to promote the contract efficiency.It is not difficult to predict that the conservatism principle will continue to influence the accounting theory and accounting practices. Theorefore, this paper is going to study the information sending role of the degree of accounting conservatism. To be a bit more concrete, this paper is conducted mainly based on the principle-agent theoretical framework of the corporation and the signal sending theory. Firstly, this paper analyzes the information sending role of accounting conservatism by considering the corporate governance mechanisms’s influence on the information disclosure of managers. The conclusion seems to support that if there is complementary relationship between the corporate governance and accounting conservatism, when the company’s corporate governance mechamism do not operate efficiently, there exists separate equilibrium. It can be interpreted as in such conditions companies with good future operating performance may have incentive to disclose information to investors by using the degree of accounting conservatism. At the same time, due to the high cost of conservative reporting to the companies with bad future operating performance, these companies may choose to not conservative report the finanicial statements. To test the ROA predictability of the accounting conservatism, this paper firstly investigates whether the degree of accounting conservatism has any incremental information content based on the current period ROA. The result seems to suppot the view that the degree of conservatism may convey incremental information in addition to the earings information. To further test whether the conservatism accounting information has the information sending role, this paper positively investigates the management signal sending behavior by using the degree of accounting conservatism with Chinese capital market background. Specifically, this paper uses the Chinese A shares listed companies during2004-2011as the major research samples, and firstly investigates the relationship between the degree of conservatism (C_Score) and the future performance (Return on asset, ROA) of company. The result suggests that the degree of conservatism is positively correlated with companies’future operation performance. Morever, from the corporate governance perspective, this paper positively investigates the relationship between the corporate governance mechiansm and the degree of accounting conservatism with the background of china capital market. The results seem to show that more efficient corporate governance may contribute to the more conservative accounting information. Based on the above researches, this paper finally tries to indentify several factors that might influence the management’s incentive of signal sending behavior. The whole organization of this paper is as following:This paper is mainly organized with seven parts:The first chapter is the introduction of the research background, research questions, research content and the research design. There is also the discussion of the contribution of my research.The second chapter is mainly about the conception, literature review and the analysis of the institutional background. This part detailed reviews the origin of the accounting conservatism and the definition of accounting conservatism both on accounting standards board perspective and on theory perspective. Moreover, this part reviews the analytical model of the Bagnoli and Watts (2005) to provide the theory framework for the further positive studies.The third chapter is the analysis of the mechanism of the accounting conservatism information sending by considering the corporate governance mechanisms. Based on the Spence (1974) signaling framework and the Bagnoli and Watts (2005) theory model, this chapter mainly analyzes how the quality and efficiency of corporate governance mechanism influence management’s information disclosure behavior.The fourth chapter is mainly investigates whether conservative accounting information distorts the financial reporting or contains incremental information based on current ROA by using future earnings response coefficient model.The fifth chapter is considering that if managers trade-off the benefits and the costs of accounting conservatism, then managers’expectation of the future performance of the company may be reflected in some extent on the degree of conservatism that managers choose to report. This part positively tested the hypothesis that whether the degree of accounting conservatism may predict company’s future profitability.The sixth chapter positively investigates the factors that might influence the predictability of the degree of accounting conservatism on the corporate governance perspective. And finally identifies the factors such as characteristics of ownership, independent auditing, and managers share holdings may nave effect on the incentive of managers information sending, thus influence the performance predictability of the degree of accounting conservatism.The seventh chapter is mainly about the research conclusions, policy suggestions, the limitation of this study and posibble future research problems.更多还原