社会规范、企业环境影响与审计收费惩戒——来自我国上市公司的经验证据

Social Norms, Environmental Impact and Audit Fee——Evidence from Chinese listed companies

通过制约和改变个体偏好,社会规范能够对人类行为产生重要影响。以我国环境治理为背景,审计收费行为可能成为社会规范对资本市场参与主体进行治理与惩戒的又一重要渠道。研究发现,在控制公司特征变量后,重污染企业的审计费用显著高于其他企业;同时,环保企业的审计费用与其他企业未发现显著差异,社会规范对审计收费的影响具有非对称性。横截面角度,社会规范约束越强地区的重污染企业的审计费用越高;时间序列上,社会大众环保意识越强的年份,重污染企业的审计费用越高。近年来,在我国环保立法及执法强度没有发生显著变化的情况下,重污染企业的审计收费却显著提高,这在一定程度上缓解了遗漏变量的可能性,也暗示重污染企业更高的审计费用更可能受到来自社会规范的影响。

Social norms can essentially influence the foundation of society by restraining and changing preferences of individuals. Based on the perspective of social norms, public firms may exhibit a social norm of polluting- punishment effect through the audit fees. The empirical results confirmed this hypothesis. After controlling a series of firm-specific variables, it is found that the audit fees of heavy polluting firms are significantly higher than others. Furthermore, we find that the polluting-punishment effect through the audit fees has asymmetric attributes. The conclusion remains stable after taking into account the cross-sectional and time- series distribution of social norms. Considering the short-term invariance of the legal environment and the changes in social norms in the short run, the effect of social norms is further confirmed.