摘要
本文以我国上市公司会计信息透明度为切入点,探讨稳健性对公司信息披露行为的影响。初步检验表明,稳健性和会计信息透明度之间呈倒U型关系,即在适度范围内,稳健性的增强有助于提升会计信息透明度,而由极端向下盈余管理引起的"过度稳健"则导致会计信息透明度下降。进一步检验发现,在剔除了盈余管理的影响后,稳健性的增强有助于提高会计信息透明度。这些结果表明,在不受盈余管理动机干扰情况下,稳健性的增强有助于缓解信息不对称水平。但是,如果企业假借稳健之名而实施极端向下的盈余管理反而会加重信息不对称程度。因此,应在大力倡导公司实施适度稳健会计的同时,需谨防公司假借稳健会计之名实行极端向下的盈余管理,会计稳健性的运用应保持一个合理的度。
Information asymmetry （IA） has always been one of the problems of modern capital markets. Information disclosure is an important way for listed companies to reduce IA, and it could help to enhance the effectiveness of resource distribution in capital market. For this reason, the quality of information disclosure is directly related to the effectiveness of securities market and the investor protection issues. Therefore, the quality of information disclosure, especially the transparency of accounting information is always a hot topic. In addition, whether accounting conservatism will mitigate or aggravate the degree of IA is still disputed. Some scholars, like LaFond and Watts, argue that conservatism can reduces the manager＇s incentives and ability to manipulate accounting numbers and so reduces information asymmetry and deadweight losses that information asymmetry generates. In contrast, FASB and IASB argue that there is a conflict between conservative accounting and neutral accounting, and that the application of conservatism will distort the accounting information. Thus, the conservatism will induce the distortion of accounting information and then lead to IA. This paper investigates the impact of conservatism on disclosure from the perspective of transparency of accounting information. The preliminary test shows that there is an inverted-＇U＇ relationship between conservatism and transparency, that is, the enhancement of conservatism helps improve transparency within a moderate range of conservatism while ＂excessive conservatism＂ deriving from extreme downward earning management leads to decline in transparency. Further test shows that the enhancement of conservatism helps improve transparency after eliminating the impact of earning management on conservatism. Therefore it is shown that the enhancement of conservatism without interference of earning management motivation can help mitigate the level of information asymmetry, and that if a company carries out extremely downward earning management under the guise of conservatism, the degree of information asymmetry will be aggravated. For this reason, although it is strongly advocated that companies should implement true conservatism, we should also beware that they are engaged in extremely downward earning management under the guise of conservatism. Thus, the application of accounting conservatism should maintain a reasonable degree.
出处
《南开管理评论》
CSSCI
北大核心
2013年第3期89-100,共12页
Nankai Business Review
基金
国家自然基金项目(70872053)资助
关键词
稳健性
会计信息透明度
资产减值准备
信息不对称
盈余管理
Conservatism
Transparency of Accounting Information
The Allowance for Asset Impairment
Information Asymmetry
Earning Management
