| Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC),the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has proposed targeted poverty alleviation and targeted poverty shake-off in accordance with the new requirements of building an all-round moderately prosperous society and in consideration of the new changes in poverty.China’s poverty alleviation and development program has entered a new stage of tackling challenges in overcoming poverty.Extensive mobilization of all social forces to participate in poverty alleviation and development is the successful experience of China’s poverty alleviation and development undertakings and also an important feature of the current targeted poverty alleviation strategy.In order to achieve the important goal of "lifting rural poor population out of poverty,removing poor counties from the poverty list and resolving regional overall poverty problems under China’s current standards by 2020",various enterprises,as the main participants in the market economy,have actively participated in the fight against poverty under the call of the party in recent years,and have played a huge role in the work of shaking off poverty in China.In 2016,China Securities Regulatory Commission(CSRC),Shanghai Stock Exchange(SSE)and Shenzhen Stock Exchange(SZSE)successively released relevant notices of encouraging listed companies to fully disclose in their annual reports the annual summary of targeted poverty alleviation,specific results of poverty alleviation work and follow-up targeted poverty alleviation plans,meanwhile to focus on disclosing the implementation of their social responsibilities of targeted poverty alleviation,and to disclose in the form of data in their annual reports their specific results in eight aspects of poverty shake-off through industrial development,employment transfer,poverty shake-off through relocation,health and ecological protection.The publicly disclosed information provides a data basis for exploring the capital market effect of China’s targeted poverty alleviation information.With the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosed by listed companies in China in the "Important Events" in their annual reports from 2016 to 2018 as the research object,this paper discusses the influencing factors of the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure of listed companies and its quality,and explores the influence of such information disclosure on the capital market from three perspectives of investors,analysts and stock price synchronicity.Proceeding with the research thread of "system features—disclosure characteristics—disclosure influencing factors—capital market effects resulted from disclosure",this paper tries to reveal the influence of the political social responsibility disclosure system with Chinese characteristics on China’s capital market and examine whether such information can improve the information environment of China’s listed companies so as to provide a reference for the disclosure of China’s sustainable development information and the disclosure methods of other countries’ social responsibility information.This paper includes eight chapters.Chapter Ⅰ is an introduction that presents the research background,research significance,research framework,research objects,research methods and innovation in research of this paper;Chapter Ⅱ is a literature review that reviews domestic and overseas literature from the perspectives of enterprise targeted poverty alleviation practices,enterprise social responsibility information disclosure and charitable donations;Chapter Ⅲ is the institutional background that analyzes the historical inevitability of the development of China’s targeted poverty alleviation strategy and the evolution of the targeted poverty alleviation disclosure system.Based on a review of the system,a statistical analysis is carried out on the disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information of listed companies in China and its quality from 2016 to 2018,and the disclosure characteristics of targeted poverty alleviation disclosure information of the listed companies in China at present stage are respectively summarized in the aspects of sectors,industries,regions and nature of property rights to obtain ocular evidence of enterprise disclosure and participation in poverty alleviation,further to lay a foundation for theoretical and empirical study.Chapter Ⅳ to Ⅶ of this paper are empirical researches as the main part of this paper.Chapter Ⅳ discusses the main factors that affect the information disclosure of China’s listed companies’targeted poverty alleviation respectively from the four aspects of party-government factor,regional factor,governance factor and resource factor through combining the disclosure characteristics of targeted poverty alleviation information of listed companies in China.Chapter Ⅴ discusses the market response to the disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information from the perspective of investors.Chapter Ⅵ studies the influence of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure on the number of analysts followed and the quality of analysts’ forecasts.Chapter Ⅶdiscusses whether targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure can reduce stock price synchronicity,and examines the capital market effect of targeted poverty alleviation disclosure from the perspective of stock price synchronicity.Chapter Ⅷ is a conclusion of this paper that puts forward policy suggestions,research limitations and future research directions based on a brief summary of this article.This main findings are as follows:(1)Features of policies for targeted poverty alleviation information disclosureAs one of the "three major battles" in China at this stage,the targeted poverty alleviation policy has distinct policy orientation,clear goals and realization path.The government can be regarded as the main stakeholder for enterprises to implement the targeted poverty alleviation policy.Therefore,the targeted poverty alleviation policy shows an explicit nature of political contract.Regulatory authorities have clear system and formal requirements for the disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information,and emphasize the independence and comparability of information disclosure compared with the voluntariness and arbitrariness of enterprises’ disclosure of social responsibility reports.Enterprises’ participation in targeted poverty alleviation and disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information can transmit to the market a "political" signal that they respond to national strategies and obey national interests.(2)Characteristics of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure by listed companies in ChinaAbout 30%of listed companies in China disclose targeted poverty alleviation information,and their disclosure shows significant differences in sectors,industries,regions and the nature of property rights.Among them,the main board listed companies,listed companies from the financial industry,listed companies from the central and western regions that are under pressure to reduce poverty,and state-owned enterprises enjoy a relatively high proportion of information disclosure;while Small and medium-sized board and GEM listed companies,listed companies from the integrated and education industries,and more developed regions in the east,and non-state-owned enterprises have a lower participation rate.The most distinctive feature of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure is the regional feature of the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure by listed companies.The higher the poverty level is,the higher the proportion of local listed companies participating in disclosure will be.Such a feature is different from the development feature of previous social responsibility reports.The disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information by listed companies in China is not an extension of the original social responsibility information disclosure,but a new social responsibility content with unique Chinese characteristics instead.The targeted poverty alleviation information is disclosed by listed companies in China at a low level in general with an average score of about 30 points for three consecutive years,wherein,poverty alleviation management scores relatively high,followed by poverty alleviation communication,but the investment in poverty alleviation and poverty alleviation efficiency disclosure information involving quantitative information turn out to be the worst.This reflects that the listed companies in China have made more disclosure of formal contents of targeted poverty alleviation,but less disclosure of the most important information about investment in targeted poverty alleviation work and the effects resulted therefrom.This conclusion reflects that the listed companies in China still pay more attention to the form of information disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation,but the disclosure of substantive and quantitative content is insufficient.(3)Influencing factors of targeted poverty alleviation information by listed disclosure companies in ChinaParty-government factor and regional factor are significant influencing factors that influence the disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information of listed companies and its quality.As a concrete manifestation,state-owned enterprises,enterprises with party organizations participating in governance,enterprises from impoverished areas and enterprises from areas with high levels of local government intervention shows a higher level of disclosure willingness and participation in targeted poverty alleviation.The listed companies that are required to compulsively disclose the social responsibility reports are more willing to disclose targeted poverty alleviation information,and have a higher level of disclosure,indicating that China’s compulsory social responsibility report disclosure system will have a positive spillover effect on enterprise targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure.In external governance mechanism,analysts’ tracking has a stable and positive effect on the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure and its quality,while the enterprises’ advertising investment variables have no significant effect thereon,reflecting that enterprises’ disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information is mainly for the purpose of communicating with participants in the capital market instead of the product market.Regarding the resource factor,only the company size has a positive and stable effect on the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure and its quality,while the enterprise profitability and debt situation have a weaker impact thereon.In addition,the scarcer the redundant resources of the enterprise are,the higher the targeted poverty alleviation disclosure and its quality will be,reflecting that there is a certain difference between the influencing factors that decide the disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information by listed companies and those of the social responsibility reports.(4)Information content of the targeted poverty alleviation informationTargeted poverty alleviation disclosure has information content.Listed companies that disclose targeted poverty alleviation information in their annual reports get higher market returns than those that do not disclose it.But the positive market response of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure only exists in Non-state-owned enterprises,the listed companies from impoverished areas and the listed companies without social responsibility disclosure reports.Moreover,the quality of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure,specific methods of targeted poverty alleviation,investment in targeted poverty alleviation and efficiency information cannot have a significant influence on the market response of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure,indicating that investors mainly concern whether listed companies participate in poverty alleviation,but the response of detailed targeted poverty alleviation information is insufficient.The targeted poverty alleviation information influences investors mainly by way of establishing political connections,reducing agency costs,strengthening of external governance and improving enterprise information transparency.However,for listed companies that have disclosed social responsibility reports,the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosed in their annual reports cannot generate new information increments,indicating that the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosed in the annual reports and social responsibility reports replace each other,rather than complement each other.(5)Impacts of targeted poverty alleviation information on analysts forecastsTargeted poverty alleviation information disclosure can significantly increase the number of analysts followed for listed companies,reduce analysts’ forecast bias and analysts’ forecast dispersion,improve analysts’forecast accuracy,and improve analysts’forecast quality.Targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure has a more significant improvement to the quality of analysts’ forecast in non-state-owned enterprises,enterprises from impoverished areas and listed companies that have not disclosed social responsibility report information in the current period and those that have performed social responsibilities better in the past.The targeted poverty alleviation information impact analysts’forecasts mainly by way of the establishment of political connections by non-state-owned enterprises,the first effect of social responsibility information disclosure,the reduction of agency costs,and the strengthening of external governance.However,the specific methods of targeted poverty alleviation,investment in targeted poverty alleviation,and efficiency information cannot have a significant influence on analyst forecasts.(6)Influence of targeted poverty alleviation information on stock price synchronicityTargeted poverty alleviation information disclosure has a significant effect on reducing stock price synchronicity,and such a effect is more significant in Non-state-owned enterprises,enterprises from impoverished areas,and listed companies that have not disclosed social responsibility report information in the current period.Targeted poverty alleviation information reduces the stock price synchronicity mainly through attracting more analysts to track and reducing agency costs.The quality of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure will also have an influence on stock price synchronicity,the participation of listed companies in industrial poverty alleviation will also have a certain influence;however,targeted poverty alleviation investment and efficiency information will not have a significant influence on stock price synchronicity.The above results generally show that targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure can convey company-level characteristic information,and such information can be captured by the market,thereby improving the information environment of enterprises,but the market has insufficient response to the details of targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure.The innovation of this paper is as follows:this paper takes targeted poverty alleviation information of listed companies with Chinese characteristics as the research object,focuses on the perspective that the regulatory authorities disclose targeted poverty alleviation information in the annual reports of listed companies,and discusses how the disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information influences capital market participants.The paper points out that targeted poverty alleviation has a strong political orientation,focuses on exploring its influence on enterprise targeted poverty alleviation in the aspects of party-government and regional factors,and also respectively considers how these factors affect the capital market effect of targeted poverty alleviation the information disclosure by listed companies in China in order to explore the political social responsibility information disclosure theory with Chinese characteristics.In addition,this article also explores the influence of enterprise social responsibility information disclosure and enterprise social responsibility performance on targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure and its capital market effect,and reveals the alternative relationship between targeted poverty alleviation information and social responsibility report disclosure.The overall results suggest that the disclosure of targeted poverty alleviation information can transfer firm’s fundamental information which can be captured by investors and analysts,thus improving the overall information environment of listed firms.However,the market has insufficient response to the details of targeted poverty alleviation information and the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation.This implies that capital market participants pay more attention to whether the listed firms participate in poverty alleviation,rather than the poverty alleviation efficiency and the quality of poverty alleviation information disclosure.In generally,this paper systematically discusses the institutional characteristics and influencing factors of the targeted poverty alleviation information disclosure by listed companies in China and its influences on main capital market participants.The research conclusions can provide a reference for regulatory authorities to further improve relevant information disclosure. |
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