Governance or reputation?Flexible tax enforcement and excess goodwill:Evidence from the taxpaying credit rating system in China

This study investigates the effect of flexible tax enforcement on firms’excess goodwill using unique manually collected data on taxpaying credit rating in China from 2014 to 2021.We document that A-rated taxpayer firms have less excess goodwill;A-rated firms reduce excess goodwill by 0.005 vis-a-vis non-Arated firms,which accounts for 100%of the mean value of excess goodwill.This finding holds after multiple robustness tests and an endogeneity analysis.Moreover,this negative effect is more pronounced in firms with low information transparency,that are non-state-owned and that are located in regions with low tax enforcement intensity.The channel test results suggest that taxpaying credit rating system as flexible tax enforcement reduces firms’excess goodwill through a reputation-based effect and not a governance-based effect.This study reveals that the taxpaying credit rating system in China as flexible tax enforcement can bring halo effect to A rating firms,thereby limiting irrational M&As and breaking goodwill bubble.

社会信任与并购商誉泡沫的抑制:基于公司治理水平的中介效应

有并购商誉的上市公司的数量和金额呈现出逐年增长的态势,已引起了社会各界对并购商誉泡沫问题的担忧,与此同时,国家多次提出要构建以社会信用为基础的新型监管机制。为了有效治理并购商誉泡沫问题,以A股上市公司2010—2020年的14 925个数据为样本,通过构建基准模型,实证检验和分析,探究了社会信任对并购商誉泡沫的影响及其作用机制,并分析了不同法律环境中社会信任对并购商誉泡沫影响的异质性。研究表明,社会信任能显著抑制并购商誉泡沫,社会信任可以通过提升公司治理水平去抑制并购商誉泡沫,在法律环境差的地区社会信任抑制效果会更好,说明正式制度的法律环境与非正式制度的社会信任在抑制并购商誉泡沫时存在互补效应。据此,提出在防范并购商誉泡沫时,应构建以社会信用为基础的新型监管机制,利用社会信任去提高公司治理水平,因地制宜推进社会信用体系建设。