自愿审计、公司治理与代理成本  

Voluntary Audit, Corporate Governance and Agency Costs

作　　者：杜兴强[1] 

机构地区：[1]厦门大学管理学院,福建厦门361005

出　　处：《江西财经大学学报》2014年第3期29-48,共20页Journal of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics

基　　金：2012年高等学校博士学科点专项科研基金项目(博导类)"半年报自愿审计;代理成本与公司价值:基于中国上市公司的经验证据"(20120121110007);国家自然科学基金项目"制度环境;政治联系;会计信息质量与审计行为"(71072053)

摘　　要：管理当局与股东之间的代理冲突是公司治理领域内最为重要的问题之一,而审计被认为是能够缓解信息不对称、降低代理成本的一种机制。虽然上述观点一直被广泛引用,但至今还未有文献为此提供系统性的经验证据。利用中国资本市场独特的制度背景,手工搜集了上市公司2002-2009年半年报自愿审计的数据,实证研究了半年报自愿审计是否能够降低代理成本这一问题。无论是Heckman二阶段模型、OLS模型、配对研究还是公司层面的固定效应回归,研究结果都一致地表明,半年报自愿审计的确显著降低了上市公司管理当局与股东之间的代理成本,从而揭示了审计所具有的信息价值和公司治理作用。进一步,公司选择"四大"与"非四大"进行的半年报自愿审计,在降低代理成本方面并不存在着系统差异,说明选择半年报自愿审计比选择何种审计师进行审计更为重要。Agency conflict between management and shareholders is one of the most important issues in the realm of corporate governance, while auditing is viewed as one of the mechanisms to alleviate information asymmetry and reduce agency costs. But there is no literature to provide systematic empirical cnvidence though it is quoted frequently. By making use of the unique institutional background of China＇s capital market and hand-collected data of public listed firms＇ voluntary semi-annual audit from 2002 to 2009, this paper empirically investigates the argument whether and how voluntary semi-annual audit can reduce agency costs. The results consistently show that voluntary semi-annual audit does significantly reduce agency costs between management and shareholders, revealing the information value and corporate governance function of audit, regardless of the methods of Heckman two-stage model, OLS model, matched sample study or firm-level fixed effects regression. Moreover, there is no systematic difference between choosing BIG4 or non-BIG4 in reducing agency costs, indicating that what matters more to shareholders is the presence of voluntary audit rather than the choice of the auditors.

关 键 词：半年报 自愿审计 代理成本 自选择 

分 类 号：F239.43[经济管理—会计学]