摘要
金融危机以来,信用评级的合理性和可信度备受争议。会计信息是企业信用评级的重要信息来源,但是,信用评级机构以及债券市场投资者是否关注会计信息,国内学术界尚无探讨。本文通过对2007-2010年中国债券市场企业信用评级的实证研究发现,目前我国企业信用评级基本上反映出了基本面的差异,财务指标、股权特征以及宏观经济发展都显著影响企业的信用评级与债券融资成本。更重要的是,会计信息质量(以是否聘请四大会计师事务所审计、会计稳健性和盈余波动性表征)得到了债券市场参与者的认可,会计信息质量越高,评级机构给予的企业信用评级越高,且债券投资者要求的投资回报越低,即债券融资成本越低。
The rationality and credibility of credit rating has been criticized since the financial crisis in 2007, during which the accounting information, especially fair value accounting, has also been heavily challenged. Although researchers in accounting field are aiming to improve the usefulness of accounting information to help the decision making of investors, and accounting information is considered as an important information source for credit rating, there is little academic research on whether rating institutions and investors in bonds market care about accounting information. Based on credit rating in China bonds market during 2007 to 2010, this paper empirically finds that credit ratings in China now basically reflect the differences of fundamentals for issuing firms, and financial indicators, ownership structure and macroeconomic index significantly affect the credit rating and bonds financing cost. More important is we find that accounting information quality （proxy by whether auditing firms is Big 4 international auditing firms, accounting conservatism and variability of earnings） is indeed rec- ognized by the participants in bonds market （credit rating agencies and bonds investors）. Thus, higher quality of accounting information can bring issuing firms higher credit rating rendered by rating agencies, and this is found in both listed firms and non-listed firms while only significant in SOEs but not in NSOEs. Even we allow for the self-selection issue of accounting conservatism and auditor choice, the results are still the same, namely high quality accounting information, proxy by our three measures, can be beneficial for credit rating in China. That means when issuing credit rating, those rating agencies consider not only the hard information like basic fundamental factors and corporate governance but also the soft information as accounting information quality. Meanwhile, the investors in bonds market will require less risk premiums, namely lower bond financing cost, for firms with better accounting information quality. And this result also indicates that credit rating in China can be helpful in investors＇ decision making.
出处
《南开管理评论》
CSSCI
北大核心
2013年第3期16-25,共10页
Nankai Business Review
基金
中央高校基本科研业务费专项资金(2012WYB35)资助
关键词
信用评级
会计信息质量
债券融资成本
Credit Rating
Accounting Information Quality
Cost of Bonds
