A Study On Measurement And Determinants Of Accounting Transparency: Evidence From Chinese Listed Companies

After the Asian financial crisis broke out in 1997,the relevant international organizations considered that the direct reason of the financial crisis was opaque accounting information in Southeast Asian countries.In 2001,Enron,which was the 7th of the world's top500,suddenly collapsed for a series of accounting scandals.This case caused strong condemnations to the capital market supervision system of the United States and causes the confidence crisis to the accounting information.These two events made the concept of accounting transparency appear.Accounting transparency is becoming the focus of academia and industrial circles because of its importance to capital market supervision system.Therefore,the research related to accounting information transparency of listed companies is important to Chinese capital market which is developing.My study starts from the definition of transparency,introduces all kinds of transparency measurements and analyzes its applicability in China.Secondly,the author constructs three accounting transparency indices using two earning quality attributes and the sum of them.Thirdly,this paper tests the effects of all the determinants on accounting transparency using data of Chinese listed companies.This paper is divided into five chapters.In chapter one,the author introduces the framework of this research,which includes the research background,subject and value.The contents and methodology,improvements and initiatives are also outlined within.In chapter two,the author reviews the past research results of transparency, focusing on the classic studies.Chapter three is about the research design,the author introduces the sample selecting process and each variable's definition in detail. Furthermore,the author establishes regression models for our empirical research and make research hypothesis as well.The content of chapter four is description and analysis of the empirical results.In the last chapter,the author gives the conclusion of this whole paper,pointing out the limitation in this research and the future direction of this study.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:For the relationship between financial status and accounting transparency,the results indicate that ROA will improve accounting transparency in the short time.The factor of Lev is positive with accounting transparency.The factors of ST and REC are negative with accounting transparency.But CFO is not a significant influencing factor on accounting transparency.For the relationship between corporate government and accounting transparency, state owned enterprise has higher accounting transparency than family owned enterprise.Independent director do no help much on increasing accounting transparency.The ownership proportion of the largest shareholder does not have apparent effect on accounting transparency also.In the end,the duality of chairman and CEO is negative with accounting transparency in the long time.For the relationship between corporate characters and accounting transparency, the result indicates that regional difference plays no significant role on transparency. HFDEX is also negative with accounting transparency.The scale of company is positive with accounting transparency.For the relationship between institutional environments with accounting,the empirical evidence shows that external governance mechanisms and legal environment do not play an important role on accounting transparency.But the variable of year is negative with accounting transparency.From all above,the author concludes that financial status and corporate characters have significant influence on accounting transparency,but corporate government has poor influence on accounting transparency.The external environment has not import influence also.