董事高管责任保险与真实盈余管理——基于凸显效应

Directors'and officers'liability insurance and real earnings management:Based on the salience effect

过往文献较少考虑董事高管责任保险与真实盈余管理的关系。本文基于2009—2020年中国A股上市公司数据研究发现,处于发展期的董事高管责任保险(简称“董责险”)负向影响真实盈余管理,且上述关系经过一系列稳健性检验依旧存在。本文基于外部监督视角进一步分析发现:(1)认购董责险可以吸引媒体关注,进而负向影响真实盈余管理。(2)认购董责险可以减少分析师关注;分析师关注可以减少真实盈余管理;分析师关注在董责险与真实盈余管理的负向关系中起着正向遮掩效应。(3)在董责险与真实盈余管理的关系中,保险公司监督中介效应并不显著。公司的弱治理情境与董责险所处的发展阶段,使得中国的董责险治理在真实盈余管理层面“柳暗花明”。这给予了中国保险业与其他企业以发展启示,对于中国等发展中国家引进国外保险等治理举措具有借鉴意义。本文为董责险与盈余管理的研究提供了新的分析视角和经验证据,在一定程度上也体现了弱治理情境的优势。

Changes in the external environment increase risks for managers and enterprises.Therefore,to reduce the impact of external risks,improve risk tolerance,and gain a comparative advantage,managers and enterprises often use earnings management and other means to smoothen profit and manage risk.Insurance can replace the improper methods of risk management used by enterprises and improve the efficiency of risk management.Directors′and officers′liability insurance(D&O insurance)refers to an insurance in which firm management is held accountable for misconduct while performing its duties,and the insurance company is responsible for the consequences of the managers′actions.Since insurance is the subject matter of the decision-makers and executors of corporate earnings management,the relationship between D&O insurance and earnings management has always attracted a lot of attention from scholars.However,most of the literature uses data from developed countries and yields conflicting evidence.On the one hand,D&O insurance can play a role in risk incentives and external supervision in reducing earnings management,and on the other hand,it triggers moral hazard and opportunistic behavior,thereby aggravating earnings manipulation.This lack of consensus in the literature has also attracted the attention of many researchers.However,the literature has mainly focused on accrual earnings management.Because of the excellent concealment,strong controllability,lower litigation risk,and greater operating space,real earnings management(REM)has become the main method of corporate earnings management.Compared with accrual earnings management,REM is,theoretically,the least likely case in the research of D&O insurance and earnings management.In the literature,the relationship between D&O insurance and earnings management mainly focuses on external supervision and moral hazard hypotheses.External supervision is more difficult to observe and cannot influence REM due to its strong concealment.Moreover,managers with opportunistic motives are less likely to use REM due to its higher usage costs.The literature pays less attention to the development of D&O insurance,and there are differences in the effectiveness of D&O insurance in different regions.At present,Chinese D&O insurance is just the literal translations of foreign contractual agreements,with vague expressions and unclear boundaries of responsibility.Localization affects the original governance effectiveness;D&O insurance in China is currently in the development stage.Considering the two limitations discussed above,this study extends the research of Hu(2019)and Yuan(2016)and uses behavioral signal theory to supplement D&O insurance′s impact on REM.Using data from Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2009—2020,this study examines the impact and role of D&O insurance on REM.We provide empirical evidence that Chinese listed companies′subscription to D&O insurance negatively affects REM.This relationship remains valid after several robustness tests,such as the two-stage least squares instrumental variable method,Heckman two-stage test,propensity score matching procedure,controlling for missing variables,the impact of events,and earnings management methods,and adjusting the sample interval.From the perspective of external supervision,further analysis shows the following.First,subscribing to D&O insurance attracts media attention,which in turn negatively affects REM.Second,subscribing to D&O insurance reduces analyst attention;analyst attention negatively affects REM,therefore analyst concerns have a positive masking effect in the negative relationship between D&O insurance and REM.Third,in the relationship between D&O insurance and REM,the supervision intermediary of the insurance companies is not significant.This paper makes the following contributions to the literature.First,with the increasingly blurred corporate boundaries,corporate governance requires internal and external coordination.Media attention can function as external supervision(which can be triggered)and make up for the inadequacies in existing supervision.Secondly,against the realistic background of the accumulation of various risks,purchasing D&O insurance reduces managers′risk-taking and risk behavior of enterprises′REM,which provides managers,investors,and regulators with practical measures for risk governance.Last,introducing foreign governance initiatives in a less-than-perfect corporate governance context is not without advantages.In such an environment,external stakeholders mostly rely on intermediaries,such as analysts and the media,for their information needs.Novel measures attract the attention of the media and public,forming the unique impact of the measures during the development period.This reveals a characteristic advantage of China′s corporate governance and the advantage of weak governance situations.It inspires the development of Chinese enterprises and the insurance industry.It also has significance for China and other developing countries to introduce foreign insurance and other corporate governance measures.