媒体监督与法治环境约束盈余管理的替代效应研究

A Study on the Substitution Effect of Media Monitoring and Legal Environment in Restraining Earnings Management

中国存在显著的法治进程不平衡的现象,东部沿海地区的法治环境明显优于中部地区和西部地区。在部分法治环境薄弱甚至是法治失灵的地区,政府会努力提高法治水平,而市场则积极寻求其他非正式制度的有益补充。随着中国传媒业的不断发展壮大,媒体在社会中发挥着日益重要的作用,尤其是在上市公司财务舞弊事件的曝光和处理过程中,媒体的公司治理作用发挥的淋漓尽致,媒体监督职能日益被社会大众认可。在这样特殊的背景下,探索媒体监督和法治环境对盈余管理的影响效应具有重要的意义。基于媒体治理理论和法与金融理论,以2009年至2013年中国沪深A股上市公司为研究对象,使用OLS回归和Heckman两阶段回归,构建媒体监督影响上市公司盈余管理的理论分析框架,实证研究媒体监督在上市公司盈余管理治理中的作用,探讨媒体监督对盈余管理策略选择的影响机理,分析媒体监督和法治环境共同作用下的治理效应,并对研究中涉及的内生性问题进行检验。研究结果表明,媒体监督可以有效约束上市公司盈余管理行为,受到媒体监督越多的上市公司其盈余管理程度越低;随着媒体监督的加强,上市公司的盈余管理策略由应计盈余管理向真实盈余管理转变;媒体监督和法治环境在盈余管理治理中存在替代效应,较强的媒体监督可以减少由于法治环境薄弱而诱发的盈余管理。研究结果表明在转轨国家中媒体监督是约束上市公司盈余管理的有效路径和法律外的有益补充,这为推动中国上市公司盈余管理治理提供了理论支持和经验证据。

In recent years, China′s legal environment has experienced a significant imbalance which has seen eastern coastal re-gions with a more functional legal setup than that of central and western regions.A number of studies have shed some light on this trend and provided some insightful suggestions on the causes and the possible remedies.In some regions faced with weak or non-functional legal setup, on the one hand, local governments often strive to improve legislation level, while, on the other hand, the market itself is actively seeking for a more beneficial supplement from an immediate best informal system available regionally. The ongoing development of China′s mass media industry has proven to be vital, particularly in the exposure of numerous finan-cial fraudulent activities involving some listed companies in the local stock exchanges.Hence, the role of mass media as a corpo-rate governance tool is attested, and consequently media′s supervisory function is increasingly receiving public recognition.Thus, it is unarguably vital to explore the impact of media monitoring and legal setup on the earnings management, as it has important implications, not only to the regulatory authorities but also to the companies and shareholders. We apply OLS and Heckman two-step estimations to test for the role of media monitoring in earnings management governance of listed companies by using their data between 2009 and 2013, and establish a theoretical framework of the media monitoring im-pact on listed companies′earnings management behavior.We further discuss the impact mechanism of media monitoring on earn-ings management strategy selection, analyze the governance effect of media monitoring and legal environment and test for endoge-neity.Using the aforementioned method and data in testing the hypotheses, our results show that, media monitoring can effective-ly and efficiently constrain earnings management of the Chinese listed companies.The results show that companies faced with stricter media monitoring have low levels of earnings management.This reveals an interesting finding, i.e., with the strengthe-ning of media monitoring, listed companies′earnings management strategy is expected to shift from accrual-based to real earnings management.Furthermore, as to the earnings management governance, we find an existence of substitution effect between media monitoring and legal setup, i.e., strong media monitoring can effectively reduce earnings management induced by weak legal set-up. The results also demonstrate, as a crucial supplement to law, media monitoring can be used in transitional economies（ such as in China） as an effective tool in restraining earnings management.This study not only attempts to provide a clear theoretical support but also presents empirical evidence in promoting earnings management governance in Chinese listed companies.