董事会计师事务所工作背景与企业现金持有水平——来自中国资本市场的经验证据

Directors with CPA Firm Working Background and Corporate Cash Holdings: Evidence from the Chinese Securities Market

基于2004—2012年我国上市公司数据,考察了董事会计师事务所工作背景对企业现金持有水平的影响。研究发现,董事会会计师事务所工作背景(董事会中是否有成员具有会计师事务所工作背景、董事会中拥有会计师事务所工作背景的董事人数、董事会中拥有会计师事务所工作背景的董事比例等)显著降低了企业的现金持有水平。进一步的分组检验结果还发现董事会计师事务所工作背景带来的现金方面的治理效应仅仅体现在高成长企业和管理层权力较大的企业之中,因为这两类企业面临的潜在代理冲突或信息不对称问题更为严重。

Using the data from 2004 to 2012 of Chinese listed companies as samples,this paper examines the impact of directors' CPA firm working background on corporate cash holdings. We find that there are significant negative correlations between director working background indices( including a dummy variable indicating the existence of at least one director who has ever worked at a CPA firm,the number and proportion of directors who have ever worked at a CPA firm) and corporate cash holdings,and these negative relationships suggest that companies whose directors have CPA firm working background hold less cash. Our further empirical evidence shows that directors who have ever worked at an accounting firm perform a role of corporate governance in reducing cash holdings only when they are on the board of companies that have high growth opportunities or that their top management team's power is high. And this may be due to information asymmetry and agency conflicts faced by high growth companies and high managerial power companies.