债务、公司治理与会计稳健性

DEBT, CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, AND ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM

本文以我国A股上市公司1999-2002年的数据为样本考察了债务作为一种公司治理机制对会计稳健性的影响。结果表明债务比重高的公司相对债务比重低的公司而言，其会计政策选择更趋稳健，并且我们做了大量敏感性测试，结果都支持该结论。我们同时发现，当企业盈利能力出现问题时，债权人会要求企业采取更加稳健的会计政策；债务对国家控股的上市公司会计稳健性的影响要明显小于对非国家控股上市公司的影响。以上经验证据表明，债务在增强公司会计稳健性方面体现出其相应的公司治理作用，且这种作用的发挥受到公司盈利能力、股东性质的影响。

This paper, based on the sample data of Chinese A-share listed companies collected between 1999 and 2002, investigates the influence of debt on accounting conservatism as a type of corporate governance mechanism. The results indicate that corporations with a higher proportion of debt tend to adopt a more conservative accounting policy, and this is supported by a number of robustness tests. We also find that creditors request the company to adopt a more conservative accounting policy when the corporate earnings ability becomes worse; the influence of debt on accounting conservatism in state-holding listed companies is significantly smaller than in other companies. The evidence above indicates that debt does play a role in corporate governance by increasing the degree of corporate accounting conservatism, and the exertion of this function is affected by corporate earnings ability and characteristics of ownership.