中央企业董事会试点与上市公司审计质量

Board Director Pilot of Central State-owned Enterprises and Audit Quality of Listed Companies

作为中央企业建立现代企业制度和规范行使其控股股东权利的重要举措,董事会试点备受理论界和实务界关注。本文利用董事会试点这一准自然实验,研究了中央企业董事会试点能否影响以及如何影响控股上市公司审计质量。研究发现,中央企业董事会试点能提高控股上市公司的审计质量;机制检验表明,中央企业董事会试点通过降低控股上市公司代理成本发挥积极效应;进一步研究表明,中央企业董事会试点对控股上市公司审计质量的促进作用在非国有股东参与程度较低、处于竞争性行业、非“四大”审计的公司中更显著。研究结论为中央企业董事会试点改革这一政策提供经验支持的同时,对进一步促进和完善中央企业内部治理结构具有重要意义。

As an important measure for the central state-owned enterprises(referred to as CSOEs hereafter) to establish a modern enterprise system and standardize the exercise of their controlling shareholders’ rights, the board pilot of CSOEs has attracted much attention from society and academia. Using the quasi natural experiment of the board pilot of CSOEs, this paper studies whether and how the board pilot of CSOEs can affect the audit quality of holding listed companies. The results show that the board pilot of CSOEs can improve the audit quality of holding listed companies. The mechanism tests show that the board pilot of CSOEs plays a positive role by reducing agency costs. Further researches show that this positive effect is more significant in the companies belonging to low participation of non-state-owned shareholders, competitive industries and non-Big Four accounting firms. Our conclusions provide empirical evidence for the implementation of the board pilot of CSOEs, and have reference value for further promoting and improving the governance reform of CSOEs.