证券监管该向谁问责:机构VS个人——基于行政处罚IPO保荐违规行为的经验证据

Who Should Be Accountable for IPO Violation?——Evidence from Administrative Punishment on IPO Underwriters' Violation

完善对证券发行中介的监管制度,避免欺诈发行证券,是各国证券监管的重要内容,也是证券监管理论的核心问题。合理界定违规主体责任并对其进行处罚,有助于强化证券监管效力,促进金融服务实体经济,但现有文献却较少述及。本文利用中国IPO项目及保荐机构和保荐代表人的数据,首次考察了IPO违规责任界定和处罚对象合理性。研究发现:无论是项目层面还是保代层面,违规项目质量和违规保代承接项目质量均显著低于其他类别项目质量,违规行为在同一机构内并不普遍。进一步分析发现,违规保代承接项目中违规项目质量最差,但处罚后违规保代的执业质量显著提升;此外,当保荐机构为上市券商、IPO项目聘用十大事务所时,违规保代与其他保代执业质量的差距显著减小。本文结果说明,保代是违规行为的主要责任人,通过加强保荐机构内部质量控制和外部监督等事前机制,可以有效提高保代执业质量。本文发现有助于拓展券商作用和证券监管的文献,并为完善证券中介监管制度提供建议参考。

Improving regulation on IPO underwriters and avoiding fraud are crucial issues in financial regulation theory and practice.How to identify and punish violating subject appropriately is essential for strengthening the effectiveness of securities regulation and promoting finance to serve the real economy,but related literature is limited.Using data of IPO projects,IPO sponsors,and administrative punishments in China,we analyze pervasiveness of IPO violations within an institution so as to evaluate the rationality of subject and responsibility identified in an IPO violation.We find that,both on project and sponsor level,quality of violating projects is lower than other non-violating projects.These results indicate that violation is not pervasive within an institution.It is violating sponsor not institution should be responsible for IPO violation.Furthermore,the quality of violating project is the lowest among the projects undertaken by violating sponsor,and the violating sponsor improves quality of practice significantly after punishment.We also document a lower difference in project quality between violating sponsors and others when IPO project is sponsored by a listed brokerage or audited by a top 10 accounting firm.Thus,internal quality control and external supervision can improve quality of IPO projects effectively.Our results contribute to the literature on brokerages'role and flnancial regulation.It is also useful for further improving regulatory enforcement actions.