同行自愿披露对企业盈余管理的影响——来自自愿性业绩预告的证据

Research on the Relationship Between Peers’Voluntary Disclosure and Corporate Earnings Management:Based on the Management Earnings Forecasts

伴随着以信息披露为核心的注册制深化改革,企业自愿信息披露备受关注。本文以2009—2019年中国上市公司数据为样本,采用工具变量法,检验了同行自愿信息披露对企业盈余管理的影响。研究发现:同行自愿披露显著提高了企业盈余管理水平,基于投资者有限注意力原则,同行自愿披露对企业盈余管理的溢出效应通过降低投资者对公司的关注度实现。异质性分析表明,同行自愿披露与企业盈余管理的正相关性在融资约束程度更高、国有企业、内部控制存在缺陷、市场化程度更高的样本中更显著。但进一步分析发现,该相关性仅持续两期且影响系数逐渐变小,未来第三期同行自愿披露与企业盈余管理显著负相关。这说明短期内同行自愿披露削弱了企业会计信息质量,但长期来看,同行自愿披露的正外部性开始凸显,能够发挥一定治理作用。文章验证了随着时间变化,同行自愿披露的溢出效应由负外部性转变为正外部性的结论,不仅为落实新《证券法》制定细化的自愿信息披露政策制度提供实证依据,还为提升资本市场信息披露质量提供了借鉴。

With the reform of the registration system centered on information disclosure in China,many scholars begin to pay attention to corporate voluntary disclosure.The existing research mainly discusses the spillover effects of peers’voluntary disclosure on the company information environment and management behavior,and most studies support that peers’voluntary disclosure has positive externalities.However,when scholars incorporate the limited attention of investors into the research framework,they find that peers’voluntary disclosure has negative externalities to the company.But there is insufficient discussion on it.Although some researches have tested the negative externalities of peers’voluntary disclosure on the company’s stock price or corporate value,they have not discussed company accounting information quality.Therefore,in the context of negative spillover effects by peers’voluntary disclosure,research whether the company has opportunistic behavior and damage the quality of accounting information should be an important and interesting topic.This article expands the research on the influencing factors of the company’s accounting information quality to peers’voluntary disclosure,and examines the relationship between peers’voluntary disclosure and corporate earnings management.Using the data of listed companies in China from 2009 to 2019 as a sample,using the instrumental variable method,we found that peers’voluntary disclosure has significantly improved the company’s earnings management.After testing the validity of instrumental variables and a series of robustness tests,the conclusions remain unchanged.Mechanism analysis shows that the spillover effect of peers’voluntary disclosure is achieved by reducing investors’attention to the company.Heterogeneity analysis showed that the positive correlation is more pronounced when a firm has a higher degree of financing constraints,is a state-owned enterprise,has defects in internal control,and is located in a region with a higher marketization process.However,further analysis revealed that the positive correlation between peers’voluntary disclosure and corporate earnings management only lasted for two periods,and the correlation coefficient decreases gradually.In the third period,there will be a significant negative correlation between peers’voluntary disclosure and earnings management.It shows that in the short term,peers’voluntary disclosure has weakened the quality of corporate accounting information,but in the long run,the positive externalities of peers’voluntary disclosure have begun to become prominent and can play a governance role.This paper makes several contributions.Firstly,we contribute to the literature on the externalities of voluntary disclosure and the influencing factors of corporate earnings management.On the one hand,we respond to scholars’calls to study industry information transfer mechanisms(Schipper,1990)and peer’information disclosure externalities(Leuz and Wysocki,2016),and provide empirical evidence from emerging economies using Chinese capital market data.Most of studies find that peers’voluntary disclosure has positive external effects by improving the information environment of enterprises and reducing capital costs.This paper incorporates the limited attention of investors into the research framework,and finds that peers’voluntary disclosure will exert companies to improve earnings management.Our study also help to better understand the economic consequences of promoting companies to improve the quantity and quality of disclosure under the registration system reform.On the other hand,previous research on the influencing factors of earnings management focus on the enterprise itself.This paper jumps out of the individual development of the enterprise and conducts a useful discussion from the perspective of industry externality.Secondly,De George et al.(2019)found that peers’voluntary disclosure has negative externalities on company stock price and enterprise value,we go one step further than De George and extend the negative externality of peers’disclosure to management opportunistic behavior.We directly verify that peers’voluntary disclosure increases management’s short-sighted behavior by reducing investor attention to the company.Third,understanding the market effect of corporate information disclosure will help regulators to better supervise information disclosure(Matsumoto and Shaikh,2017).The conclusions of this paper will provide a reference for the regulatory authorities to formulate more reasonable information disclosure regulatory policies.