审计师行业专业能力能够提高社会责任信息可靠性吗?——基于债务融资成本视角的分析

Does Auditors' Industry Specialization Improve the Reliability of CSR Information?Analysis Based on Cost of Debt

本文基于债务融资成本视角,探讨审计师行业专业能力对社会责任信息可靠性的保障作用。研究发现,审计师行业专业能力较强时,履行社会责任能够显著降低债务融资成本,说明审计师行业专业能力能为社会责任等非财务信息提供增量信息,成为债权人等外部投资者判断企业社会责任信息可靠性的重要依据。在社会责任信息可靠性保障程度较高的情形下,高成长性企业履行社会责任对于降低债务融资成本具有更明显的作用。基于审计师声誉、财务信息质量等审计供给因素,以及机构投资者、产权性质、股权集中度等审计需求因素的分析,排除了相关内生性因素可能存在的潜在干扰。本文研究一方面表明逐步推广社会责任审计对于提升社会责任信息可靠性,发挥社会责任的积极效应具有重要参考价值;另一方面也说明提升非财务信息可靠性对于降低实体经济融资成本具有一定借鉴意义。

With the increasing demand of corporate social responsibility （ CSR）, how to assure the reliability of CSR information is a very important topic. According to the report of KPMG in 2013 ,there are 59 percent firms employed the auditors to provide the assurance for the CSR reports for the top 250 firms in the world. Meanwhile, in China, the CSR reports of some listed firms should be disclosed mandatorily with the regulation of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2008. However, only few firms engaged in the auditing of CSR reports and the CSR auditing does not significantly increase the reliability of CSR reports. As the auditors＇ industry specialization could improve the quality of financial information,will it have the same effects on the non-financial information like CSR？ In this paper, we investigate the association between the auditors＇ industry specialization and the reliability of CSR information. Since the disclosure of CSR information is heterogeneous and few studies provide an efficient method to identify the reliability of CSR information, we measure the reliability of CSR information with the conse- quences of CSR indirectly. On the one hand, CSR could reduce the information asymmetry so that the financial con- straints are mitigated and the cost of equity is decreased. On the other hand, the managers could extract private ben- efits from the CSR activities and increase the agency conflicts. Therefore, it makes sense because evidence for the consequences of CSR is contradictory and the beneficial effects may come from the reliability of CSR. To define the reliability of CSR information, we use the sensitivity of cost of debt to CSR score as proxy. The reasons are as fol- lows ： （ 1 ） cost of debt is a major concern for the development of real economy, especially for the credit-oriented eco- nomic entity of China, which is suggestive for the Supply-side Structural Reform. （2） Non-financial information,in- cluding CSR information, plays an important role in the efficiency of capital allocation. Whether the incentive of CSR is ethical or opportunistic is highly related to the agency costs of creditors. With the sample of Chinese listed firms during 2008--2014 and the CSR score of RKS （ Rankings CSR ratings） ,we find that the CSR score is more sensitive to cost of debt with the industry specialized auditors,which implies that the industry specialized auditors could improve the reliability of CSR information and have value implication for the investors. Further evidence shows that the positive effect of industry specialized auditors in reducing cost of debt is more pronounced with the sub-sample of high growth firms. Moreover, we eliminate the endogenous im- pacts of both audit supply factors, including auditor reputation and financial information quality, and audit demand factors, including institutional investors, nature of property and ownership concentration, which will make our evi- dence more robust. Several contributions are made in this paper. First, it shows that the association between cost of debt and CSR information is conditional on the industry specialized auditors, which suggests that industry specialized auditors could increase the assurance of CSR information and provide incremental information for the investors like credi- tors. As well, it implies that auditors＇ industry specialization has a spillover effect for which not only assure for the financial information, but also increase the reliability of non-financial information. Second, evidence in this paper ex- plains the contradictory findings of the CSR studies. The negative consequences of CSR is mainly resulted from the grabbing of private benefits with CSR activities and the CSR reports are less informative ,which shows that there are potentials for extending the CSR auditing. Finally, cost of debt could be reduced with the reliability of CSR informa- tion, especially for the high growth firms. The results not only provide the channel for which the CSR could reduce the financial constraints and improve the future performance, but also implies that the increased reliability of CSR information could reduce the financing cost of the real economy efficiently.