| As a legal fiction in the law system,the company can also be regarded as a nexus of contractual relations.Therefore,the survival and development of modern enterprises are often rooted in the validity of the above-mentioned contracts(Jensen and Meckling,1976).The formulation of accounting standards is an important support to ensure the effective assignment and execution of contractual relationships.The formulation of accounting standards is often a process of negotiation or compromise by outside stakeholders so that the information provided by accounting standards can be used to better coordinate and balance the interests of multiple parties such as principals,agents,and regulators,to achieve the effective allocation of resources(Scott,1997).Therefore,the development and revision of accounting standards often also reflect changes in accounting information demand caused by changes in real economic conditions.However,the change of accounting standards often has a certain degree of lag.In reality,the large-scale development or revision of accounting standards is often affected by some major economic events.Considering the situation in China,the reform and opening-up policy starts the movement of economic development.In particular,joining the World Trade Organization(WTO)is an important node for China's economy to deeply integrate into the global economic development pattern.In this context,to meet the growing demand for high-quality accounting information,China completed its commitment to the convergence of accounting standards to the International Financial Reporting Standards(IFRS)in 2007,and continued to revise and improve the accounting standards in 2014,achieving further convergence with the International Financial Reporting Standards.In fact,given that the convergence of accounting standards has a direct impact on the quality of accounting information.Therefore,based on this setting,the existing literature has investigated its possible impact on the quality of accounting information.Specifically,combined with the background of the adoption of IFRS in countries around the world,existing research has focused on the possible impact of the convergence of standards on the relevance of accounting information,market effectiveness,cost of capital,and earnings management.However,the overall research findings are inconsistent.It can be seen that most of the existing research focuses on how the adoption of the IFRS affects the value relevance of accounting information,thereby achieving the goal of the usefulness for making decisions.But generally speaking,theoretical studies have shown that the reliability and relevance of accounting information are not separated from each other,but a unity of opposites.Furthermore,combined with the Chinese situation,the reliability of accounting information is not only an important basis for improving relevance and achieving the usefulness of decision-making goals but also a necessary condition for protecting the interests of investors.However,existing studies have relatively few studies on the impact of changes in accounting standards on reliability,and few investigations focus on the reliability of accounting information(earnings persistence)based on China's two standards convergence(2007 and 2014).There is also a lack of further analysis and discussion based on China's special political and economic conditions.As an important input value and information basis for corporate valuation and contract design,earnings persistence has always been widely concerned by various investors.The higher earnings persistence reflects the ability of the company's core resources to stably generate income and bring cash flow in the next fiscal period.From the perspective of the information output by the accounting system,the main reason for determining the persistence of earnings is the ability of accruals to accurately reflect the business and the difference in the degree of matching between the accounting information system and the business of the enterprise.Then,with the convergence of Chinese accounting standards,has the reliability of accounting information(earnings persistence)improved? The analysis of this issue will help to understand how the quality of accounting information has changed in the process of convergence of IFRS.Is there a “seesaw” effect that reduces reliability in exchange for increased relevance,and whether it helps to improve capital market efficiency and investor protection?In addition,the important goal of improving and revising accounting standards is to improve the quality of accounting information through better standards,thereby reducing the degree of information asymmetry between the company and external stakeholders and alleviating agency problems,thus improving the efficiency of capital allocation and promote economic development.Investment,as an important part of business activities,collectively shows how companies allocate economic resources and has a very significant impact on whether companies can achieve highquality development in the future.In this regard,some existing studies have found that corporate internal governance such as equity incentives,cash dividends,and salary incentives can help alleviate agency conflicts,thereby improving corporate investment efficiency.Some other studies have also shown that the company's external environmental factors may also have an impact on investment efficiencies,such as environmental uncertainty and law environment.Moreover,from the perspective of the quality of accounting information,the existing literature believes that the quality of accounting information can also help promote the improvement of corporate investment efficiency.For example,the transparency,comparability,and conservatism of accounting information can also help alleviate the problems related to inefficient investment.But in fact,the dimensions of accounting information quality are multi-level.If only understanding accounting information quality from the above-mentioned angles,it will not be conducive to analyzing the impact of accounting information quality on enterprise investment efficiency from a more comprehensive perspective.In particular,the persistence of earnings is an important aspect of the quality of accounting information.Under the context of Chinese background,earnings persistence can better characterize the performance of management's stewardship responsibilities,alleviate information asymmetry and agency problems,and thus may have an impact on the investment behavior of enterprises.However,the existing research on its analysis of the efficiency of corporate investment is not in-depth enough.Finally,based on the development of Chinese Accounting Standards(CAS),the important motivation for convergence with IFRS was to solve the practical problems faced by the economic development stage at that time,so as to better integrate into the development of the global economy,but this also reflects that the accounting standard system may have inherent lag.The specific manifestation is that the revision and improvement of standards is try to fixed the practical problem that already exists,however,in many aspects,it may still lag behind the current state of economic development.Based on the current new stage of economic development,with the rapid development of digital technology,the advent of the digital economy has had a huge impact on the business and development model of enterprises.As a new production factor,data has brought major opportunities and challenges to the development of enterprises,but neither the IFRS nor the CAS have responded to this new phenomenon that has emerged in economic development.As a result,accounting standards are gradually lagging behind the actual development of the economy at this stage,and they are likely to be mismatched with economic reality.This poses a challenge to the accounting information system to faithfully reflect and record the economic business of the enterprise,and it may also interfere with the earnings persistence.Based on the present and looking forward to the future,how to continuously improve the earnings persistence through further revision and improvement of accounting standards is also a research topic worthy of attention.Based on this,this article also cross-uses empirical analysis and normative research methods,and try to figure out: firstly,under the background of the new economy,the absence of data resources in the existing financial statements may have an impact on the sustainability of corporate earnings;secondly,discussing and analyzing the accounting theoretical issues such as the definition,confirmation,and measurement of data assets,provide countermeasures and opinions for further improving the earnings persistence and the quality of accounting information quality in the future.Based on the above analysis,this paper is based on the past and future changes and developments of CAS.It not only examines the impact of accounting standards on the persistence of earnings from the perspective of convergence of accounting standards but also analyzes the impact of earnings persistence on corporate investment efficiency.In the end,this paper also analyzes the accounting confirmation and measurement of data assets from the perspective of possible future changes in accounting standards.The above three research questions closely focus on the core research topic of earnings persistence,from the three-level logic of "influencing factors(convergence of accounting standards)? economic consequences(investment efficiency)? future countermeasures(recognition and measurement of data assets)" to systematically research.In general,the research in this article will not only help to view the potential impact of the two convergences of accounting standards in China from the perspective of the reliability of accounting information,but also supplement the use of accounting information to promote the high-quality development of the real economy.Relevant research provides useful attempts and reflections for the future introduction and improvement of data assetrelated accounting standards to promote the persistence of earnings and the improvement of the quality of accounting information.The findings of this paper are as follows:Firstly,in terms of the relationship between earnings persistence and adoption of IFRS in China,the two international convergences(2007 and 2014)of the CAS have played a positive role in promoting the persistence of the accounting items,which means that the new accounting standards are conducive to improving the reliability of accounting information.Furthermore,specific standards that have a deep level of convergence with IFRS with large changes have significantly improved the persistence of the earnings of closely related accruals.Finally,combined with China's special political and economic characteristics,this study also found that the convergence of standards in 2007 has a more significant marginal effect on the increase of earnings persistence in state-owned enterprises.Secondly,in terms of the economic consequences of earnings persistence,this paper finds that higher earnings persistence can effectively promote the improvement of corporate investment efficiency by strengthening supervision and strengthening incentives,and this positive effect is mainly manifested in the inhibition of corporate over-investment.Furthermore,combined with the background of the international convergence of Chinese accounting standards,it is found that the convergence of accounting standards helps to strengthen the positive effect of earnings persistence in improving the efficiency of corporate investment.Finally,the analysis of cross-sectional heterogeneity found that overconfidence,agency costs,and free cash flow will influence the relationship between earnings persistence and investment efficiency.Thirdly,in terms of possible countermeasures to continue to improve the persistence of earnings in the future.This paper uses textual analysis methods to extract and construct variables that can describe the difference in the use of corporate data resources to a certain extent,and it is found that data resources are an important driving force for corporate development,which shows that the current accounting standards are incomplete in describing corporate earnings.Based on this,this article adopts a theoretical research method to define data assets as master data that is formed by past events and can be controlled by the company,and whether it can be used exclusively as a judgment standard for the subject to control the master data.According to the differences in the use of data assets and profit characteristics in business operations,it is believed that separate data assets should be considered to be divided,measured,and presented,which provides a reference for the accounting confirmation and measurement of data assets.Different from existing research,the potential theoretical contributions and practical values of this article are as follows.First of all,this paper helps to enrich and expand the existing research literature on earnings persistence.Existing attention is paid to the impact of standard convergence on the value relevance of accounting information,but little literature is based on the reliability of accounting information.This article tries to fill this gap,focuses on the impact of convergence on the persistence of earnings,enriches and expands the existing research.Furthermore,this article also carried out an in-depth discussion on the economic consequences of earnings persistence and provided empirical evidence at the micro-enterprise level to supplement the view that accounting information can serve the high-quality development of the real economy.Moreover,combining the important characteristics of the new stage of economic development,this article discusses the accounting confirmation and measurement related to data assets and proposes corresponding countermeasures from the perspective of improving the persistence of earnings by developing accounting standards.Secondly,this paper enriched and expanded the related research on corporate investment efficiency.Existing literature largely investigates its impact on corporate investment efficiency from the perspective of the transparency,comparability,and conservatism of accounting information.The dimensions of the quality of accounting information are multiple,and the persistence of earnings is also an important aspect of the quality of accounting information,which may also have an impact on the investment behavior of enterprises.In the context of the international convergence of CAS,based on the goal of accounting information serving the highquality development of the real economy,and from the perspective of the economic consequences of earnings persistence,this paper examines its impact on corporate investment efficiency and its potential mechanism.It not only provides a new perspective on how to improve the efficiency of corporate investment but also supplements the relevant research on the use of accounting information to promote the high-quality development of the real economy.The conclusions of this research are useful for establishing and perfecting the capital market reform centered on information disclosure.Thirdly,this paper enriched and expanded the relevant theoretical and empirical research on data assets.As the digital economy enters a stage of rapid development,data has gradually become an important factor of production for enterprises in the context of the new economy;however,the existing accounting standards have not yet included data assets in the standard system,which may lead to accounting standards lag behind business practices.Under this context,this paper combines the relevant guiding principles of the "Conceptual Framework of Financial Reporting" and the rapid development of the digital economy and analyzes issues such as the confirmation and measurement of data assets.This paper systematically sorts out the possibility and confirmation conditions of confirming data as assets from the theoretical level.Moreover,based on the differences in the way in which data generates economic benefits inflows,this paper puts forward feasible suggestions for the subsequent measurement of data assets,which can provide useful references for future related theoretical research,standard-setting,and enterprise data asset management practices.In addition,this paper also uses the research method of text analysis to construct variables that can describe the data assets of the enterprise to a certain extent and analyzes the impact of data assets on the persistence of earnings,not only for future research on the impact of data assets provides a reference standard and is a useful attempt and advancement for theoretical and empirical research related to data assets.Finally,this paper enriches and expands the relevant research on the international convergence of accounting standards.As the IFRS puts more emphasis on the principle-based basis,the convergence of accounting standards does not necessarily help to achieve the established goal of providing higher quality and transparent accounting information in theory.Summarizing the existing research,the prior studies mainly focus on the relevance of accounting information,but the discussion on the persistence of earnings is not deep enough.The persistence of earnings is an important indicator of the reliability of accounting information and an important yardstick for faithfully reflecting the agent's stewardship duties.To the literature that focuses on the persistence of earnings,there are few studies based on the comparative analysis of the changes before and after China's two convergence(2007 and 2014),and there is a lack of discussions on further analysis based on China's special political and economic conditions.Therefore,this paper provides a supplementary analysis of the impact of the convergence of accounting standards from the perspective of earnings persistence.It not only evaluates the potential impact of the convergences of accounting standards in China from the perspective of the reliability of accounting information but also enriches and expands the relevant studies on existing papers about the international convergence of accounting standards. |
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