摘要
本文采用2002年至2004年上市公司的数据,以盈余质量视角研究审计委员会制度的有效性。研究发现,基于各年截面数据,设有审计委员的上市公司均具有较高的盈余质量,同时也发现这种盈余质量上的差异已经存在于上市公司成立审计委员会的上一年。当控制这种成立前的盈余质量差异之后,本文发现,设立审计委员会前后,上市公司盈余质量没有显著变化。因此,本文结论并没有发现审计委员会在提高会计盈余质量方面已发挥了应有的作用。
Audit committee systems are presumed to be an effective corporate governance mechanism. There is much empirical evidence based on Chinese capital market data to support the conclusion that audit committee systems have improved the quality of accounting information. On the other hand, some theoretical papers describe fundamental problems within the environment of audit committees, such as system design and legal system aspects. Our research aims to further investigate the relationship between firms, audit committees and earnings quality, represented by the value relevance of earnings. Based on capital market data from 2002 to 2004, we investigate the effectiveness of audit committee mechanisms from the viewpoint of improving earning quality. Our main findings are： （1） based on cross-sectional data, the firms with audit committees show higher earnings quality. However, this higher earnings quality also existed before the setting up of the audit committee when compared to firms that choose not to set up an audit committee; （2） after controlling for the pre-setup difference in earnings quality, no difference is found in earnings quality between the firms with and without audit committees. Our findings do not suggest that audit committees have improved the quality of accounting information.Our results have an important implication for further research about the effectiveness of the audit committee system. We find that firms with higher earnings quality tend to set up audit committees. Researchers who hope to evaluate the effectiveness of audit committees should control for this self-selection effect. And more importantly, future research should test the effectiveness of audit committee systems from viewpoints other than earnings quality.
出处
《南开管理评论》
CSSCI
北大核心
2009年第4期107-112,共6页
Nankai Business Review
基金
国家自然科学基金项目(70472019
70602024)资助
关键词
审计委员会
盈余质量
公司治理
Audit Committee
Earnings Quality
Corporate Governance
