异质金融资产配置是否会加剧经营现金流操控——基于分析师现金流量预测的经验证据

Can Heterogeneous Financial Assets Allocation Aggravate Operating Cash Flow Manipulation?An Empirical Evidence Based on Analysts’Cash Flow Forecasts

基于中国A股非金融上市公司2007-2018年的数据,本文研究了证券分析师现金流预测及金融化背景下,异质金融资产配置对经营活动现金流操控的影响。经实证检验发现:为迎合分析师的预测,被分析师签发现金流量预测次数越多的上市公司,经营现金流操控程度显著越强;其中,金融化程度更高、持股银行及国有企业经营现金流操控现象更显著,配置较高比例的非标准化交易类金融资产更便于公司进行经营现金流操控。进一步分析发现,高金融化公司的现金流操控程度与较少的应计操纵显著正相关。研究结果表明,实体企业金融化显著增强了上市公司经营活动现金流量操控的程度,影响了财务报告披露质量。

As an important information intermediary,analysts play the dual roles of private information miners and public information interpreters in the capital market.In recent years,more and more cash flow forecasts appear in the reports of Chinese securities analysts,and become another kind of important analyst forecast information in addition to earnings forecasts.As cash flow information reflects the quality of earnings,cash flow forecasts provided by analysts can help interpret earnings,assess enterprises’viability,mitigate accrual mispricing,and enhance analysts’understanding of manipulative accruals and earnings persistence.It also helps analysts to improve the accuracy of earnings forecasts and target price forecasts to show individual excellence.Given that the capital market pays more and more attention to analysts’cash flow forecasts,the economic consequences of analysts releasing cash flow forecasts require in-depth studies.Usually,cash flow forecasts released by analysts will put greater market pressure on listed enterprises,and the management has a strong incentive to manipulate operating cash flow in order to meet market expectations.At the same time,China’s real economy has shown an obvious trend of financialization.A growing number of non-financial listed enterprises have divorced from their original main business and got involved in the financial industry.Financialized listed enterprises hold more financial assets,and the new connections with banks because of holding bank’s shares may enhance the management’s ability to manipulate operating cash flow through reclassification.Besides,listed enterprises that allocate different financial assets may exhibit different ability of cash flow manipulation.The financialization of listed enterprises and manipulation of operating cash flow not only harm the operation of the real economy,but also reduce the information transparency of capital market,which will affect the prosperity and stability of the financial market.At present,although some literature focuses on the adverse impact of financialization on listed enterprises,there is no literature on its impact on operating cash flow manipulation.Therefore,based on the data of Chinese A-share non-financial listed enterprises from 2007 to 2018,this paper studies the impact of analysts’operating cash flow forecasts and heterogeneous financial assets allocation on operating cash flow manipulation against the background of non-real businesses’financialization.The empirical results show that the more frequent analysts release cash flow forecasts,the stronger the degree of operating cash flow manipulation becomes in order to meet analysts’forecasts.With higher degree of financialization,and more noticeable operating cash flow manipulation of shareholding bank and state-owned enterprises(SOEs),enterprises with higher proportion of non-standardized traded financial assets more tend to manipulate operating cash flow.Finally,further analysis finds that the cash flow manipulation of highly financialized enterprises is significantly and positively correlated with less accrual earnings manipulation.Therefore,financialization of non-real businesses enhances the degree of operating cash flow manipulation by listed enterprises,which affects the quality of financial reports they disclosed.The main contributions of this paper are as follows.(1)It is the first to empirically test the moderating role of financialization of real businesses in the relationship between analysts’cash flow forecasts and operating cash flow manipulation in China,which enriches relevant literature.(2)This paper provides a theoretical and logical explanation for the fact that the financialization of real businesses prompts the management to manipulate operating cash flow by distinguishing between enterprises’holdings of standardized and non-standardized trading financial assets,which differs from previous literature on financialization.(3)It confirms that the degree of SOE executives’operating cash flow manipulation is significantly higher due to the natural good relationship between SOEs and banks,which provides indirect evidence for the agency problem in the current SOE reform.(4)Empirical results also show that the whitewash of earnings quality by the cash flow manipulation activities of financialized enterprises significantly reduces the degree of accrual earnings manipulation,which will help clarify the relationship between cash flow manipulation and accrual manipulation.This has practical significance not only for regulators but for investors to make reasonable judgments on the quality of earnings information of listed enterprises.