外部审计、产权性质与费用粘性

External Audit,Ownership Nature and Cost Stickiness

外部审计作为一种外部监督机制,具有公司治理的职能,因而有助于降低由代理问题引起的费用粘性。鉴于此,以2005—2012年我国A股上市公司为研究样本,实证检验外部审计对企业费用粘性的影响,结果显示:我国上市公司费用存在粘性,并且,与销售费用相比,管理费用粘性更大,这为费用粘性成因的代理观提供了额外的证据;高质量的外部审计有助于缓解企业的代理冲突,从而降低管理层机会主义行为引发的费用粘性;同时,对于不同产权性质的企业,其费用粘性程度不同,外部审计降低费用粘性的效果也存在差异,具体来说,相对于非国有企业,国有企业费用粘性更大,外部审计降低费用粘性的作用更为显著。

As a kind of external supervision mechanism,external audit has the function of corporate governance to help decrease the cost stickiness caused by agency problem. In view of this,based on Chinese A-share listed companies from 2005 to2011,this paper examines the influence of external audit on cost stickiness. Our research shows that there exists cost stickiness in China＇s listed companies. Compared with the cost of sales,the cost of management is stier,which provides additional evidence for the agency of cost stickiness. External audit of high quality can help to alleviate the agency conflict and whereby reduce cost stickiness triggered by management opportunism behavior. At the same time,we find that the level of cost stickiness differs in enterprises with different ownership nature,and the effect of external audit in reducing cost stickiness is also different. Specifically,compared with the non-state-owned enterprises,the cost stickiness of state-owned enterprises is more serious and the effect of external audit is more significant.