Study Of Relationship Between Debt Maturity Structure And Accounting Conservatism In Chinese Listed Companies

Accounting conservatism principle has been the hot debating point in accounting theories and practices since long time ago. It has existed more than 500 years, but until the widely use of the fair value measurement in national accounting in 1990s, the study of accounting conservatism begins. Nonetheless, compared with other accounting fields at home and abroad, the empirical research on accounting conservatism is still less, and the fields are concentrated. In foreign countries, the systematical research about accounting conservatism just more than ten years. This is not completely disproportionate with its hundreds years of history. And in China, the research in this area is less. So far, the domestic and foreign scholars from different views to study the accounting conservatism, such as the view of testing whether it exists, the view of the influence of managerial ownership and property for the accounting conservatism, etc. Based on previous studies, from the view of debt ratio and debt maturity structure, this paper studies the relationship between debt constraints and accounting conservatism.From the research on the theories of debt maturity structure and the accounting conservatism, through exploring the domestic and international research results related, this paper found, as the differences in debt proportion and debt maturity structure of different listed companies (this refers to bank loans), its creditors would have different quality requirement for accounting information. And from this, it leads to its perspective and research content. Combining the standard with empirical research, this paper mainly explore the relationship between the bank debt ratio of Chinese listed companies and accounting conservatism, and the relationship between debt maturity and accounting conservatism.This paper selects 2005-2009 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies as a sample, using extended Basu(1997) model to research the relationship between bank loans of various maturities and accounting conservatism by regression analysis. And the sample companies are grouped according to the proportion of loans, and then by comparing the different BASU value of the sample groups, the paper concludes as follows. First, the bank debt is proportional to the accounting conservatism, and when bank loan ratio is higher, the company's accounting policies are more robust. Second, short-term loans is proportional to accounting conservatism, and higher the proportion, more robust the company's accounting information. Third, long-term loans have negative correlation to the conservatism, and the company which has lower proportion of long-term loans has superior accounting conservatism than that has higher proportion of long-term loans. Finally, based on the conclusions, this paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations for strengthening the protection for creditors, the law enforcement environment, and the reformation of property rights in banks and enterprises to ensure the quality of accounting information to be really improved.