公司资源的“隧道效应”——来自中国上市公司的证据

Earnings Management to Tunnel:Evidence from China’s Listed Companies

本文考察了中国上市公司在控制股东谋求自己利益的前提下，其盈余管理是否与公司资源的“隧道效应”有关。我们猜测在治理结构越差和超过监管阀值动力越大的公司，进行盈余管理的激励越强烈；当隧道行为变得困难时其也减弱。我们的实证分析表明应计利润总额和行业中值调整后的应计利润(industry-median—adjusted accruals)与H／B股虚拟变量负相关，同时与下列因素表现出正相关关系：最大股东在公司的利益，高层管理人员在公司的利益以及董事会是否由CEO来控制。我们的结论显示了隧道问题在具有下列特点的公司里更为突出：一个强有力控股的股东，公司的CEO们对公司具有强烈的私人利益，董事会不是那么独立；然而当公司与境外投资者交易股票时这个问题减轻了。而且。中国资本市场发生的某些特殊事件也为我们的假设提供了支持。

This paper examines whether earnings management in China's publicly traded companies is related to controlling shareholders 'tunneling' the resources out of the firm for their own benefits.We hypothesize that the incentives to manage earnings are stronger for firms with poorer governance practices,more urgent needs to exceed regulatory thresholds;they become weaker when tunneling becomes more difficult.Our empirical evidence shows that total accruals and industry median adjusted accruals are positively correlated with the largest shareholder's inter- est in a company,top executives' interests in the company,and whether the board of director is chaired by the CEO,negatively related to H/B share dummy.Our results suggest that tunneling is more problematic in companies with powerful controlling shareholders,with CEOs that have great personal interest in the company,and with a board that is less independent,less severe for firms that have shares traded by foreign investors.Moreover,by studying several specific incidents in the context of China's capital market,we find that firms tend to manage earnings when the po- tential 'tunnding' benefits is high or when the probability of being caught is low.These results suggest that earnings management serves as one specific form of 'tunneling' in Chinese stock mar- ket.