实际控制人政治身份降低债权人对会计信息的依赖吗——基于自我约束型治理视角的解释和实证检验

文章实证分析了民营上市公司实际控制人政治身份对会计信息债务契约有用性的替代效应,发现实际控制人政治身份降低了会计信息债务契约有用性,而且该效应随政治身份级别提高而加强;本文以上市公司违规概率、债务违约概率、审计意见严格程度以及操控性应计水平作为企业声誉及财务报告质量的替代,发现实际控制人具有政治身份、以及较高级别政治身份的公司,其声誉更好、财务报告质量相对更高;研究还发现,更具有关系资源优势的政府任职及金融机构任职背景没有降低债权人对于会计信息的依赖,具备上述优势的企业其违规、债务违约指标也没有得到改善.实际控制人政治身份对于会计信息债务契约有用性的替代效应,不是由于政治施压直接影响银行贷款决策,而是由于出于维护政治声誉和竞争优势目的的自我约束型治理,降低了债务契约风险.

Does Ultimate Controlling Owners' Political Status Mitigate the Credit Banks' Dependence on the Accounting Information: An Empirical Study Based on Perspective of Self-discipline Corporate Governance

This article inspects whether the ultimate controlling owners' political status alleviates the credit banks' dependence on the accounting information of Chinese private listed companies. The accounting information can reflect the debtors' repaying capability and profitability in a way, but the accounting information may be distorted by accounting technique, such as the historical cost system, the accrual accounting basis, so the financial statements can not supply complete information for credit banks. The ultimate controlling owners' political status is an important unofficial institution arrangement, and it can create competition advantage and reputation for the enterprises, because the ultimate controlling owners who have got political status can participate in the process of policy making of the state, can acquaint the trend of government's industry policy change, can make good relationship with the government and the officials, and can alleviate the supervising intensity from related departments, and even can get loans by so called "political or policy loan", so, on the one hand, the ultimate controlling owners' political status maybe an important signal transfer mechanism of the enterprises and a safeguard mechanism of the enterprises' loan contract; on the other hand, the ultimate controlling owners' political status may be an important instrument with which can wield a direct influence on banks' loan policy making. This study finds that the ultimate controlling owners' political status mitigates the credit banks' dependence on accounting information, and the higher the level of political status, the stronger the above effects. It also finds that the politically connected firms have lower probabilities in departure from loan contract, the incidence of illegal events, and obtaining severe auditing opinions, but the firms' government and bank backgrounds do not weaken the function of accounting information, and the probabilities in departure from loan contract, the incidence of illegal events, and obtaining severe auditing opinions are not being declined by government and bank backgrounds. In summary, the politically connected firms have strong self-discipline incentive to safeguard political reputation and competition advantage, and the substitution effect stems from the self-discipline of enterprises which provides potential guarantee for the loan contract, but not from the political interference on the banks' loan decision-making.