稳健会计原则、成长能力与过度现金股利支付

Conservative Accounting, Growth Opportunity, and Cash Dividend Overpayment

稳健会计原则或称会计稳健性，是从对财务报告的限制角度出发保护投资者利益的一种有效机制，能够发挥公司治理的功能。采用中国2001至2006年上市公司数据，本文研究发现：稳健会计原则能够有效降低过度现金股利的支付可能，体现其公司治理作用。但是，由于不同成长能力下控股股东的“掏空动机”不同，因此稳健会计原则的治理作用也存在一定差异。在成长能力较低时，较强的掏空动机使得稳健会计原则抑制过度现金股利支付的作用更加明显。

From the perspective of financial reporting, conservative accounting is an effective mechanism to protect the interests of investors and can play a corporate governance role. Using the data of listed firms in China from 2001 to 2006, this paper finds that conservative accounting can effectively reduce the likelihood of cash dividend overpayment. However, as the tunnelling incentive for management is different under different growth opportunities, the governance role of accounting conservatism also varies. Controlling shareholders have a higher motivation to tunnel assets from those firms with lower growth opportunities, and this improves the effect of conservative accounting in reducing the likelihood of cash dividend overpayment.