Research On Economic Consequences Of Listed Companies’ Accounting Information Transparency

As a bridge and bond linking listed companies with the capital market, accounting information plays an important role in capital market and even the entire national economy, while accounting information transparency has received much attention from the theoretical and the practical communities. In1996, the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) firstly put forward the term "transparency" in Comments on the declaration of "Core Standards", which was adopted as one of the standards on "high quality accounting information". Since then, a boom of researches into transparency has been raised in the field of accounting. Arthur Levitt, ex-president of SEC, had mentioned "transparency" in his lectures and important speeches several times; Ge Jiashu, the domestic leading authority in accounting, had paid long-term attention to studies on transparency of accounting information and published an article in2010appealing that "to define’high quality’ and ’transparency’ attaches urgency". Other scholars at home and abroad have carried out the studies on accounting information transparency from different perspectives, but it is a pity that no uniformly acknowledged concept of and judging methods for accounting information transparency have been formed, whereby the further research remains in need. In the practical community, the financial scandals of the foreign Enron Corporation, WorldCom and the domestic companies like GUANGXIA INDUSTRY CO., LTD, Wanfu Biotechnology Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. and more are inseparable from a series of problems of low accounting information transparency such as counterfeiting accounting information, unsmooth information disclosure, etc. These problems have provoked the profound reflections on the issue of accounting information transparency in all sectors of society.The influential factors and the economic consequences of accounting information transparency are two major mainstream directions of the current researches on accounting information transparency. The research on the economic consequences of accounting information transparency attaches much significance. Searching for the rules where improving accounting information transparency can reduce the enterprise’s cost of equity capital and improve the corporate performance can not only enrich the research in relevant fields on the theoretical scale, but even drive the listed companies to form the intrinsic motivation to actively improve accounting information transparency in practice, whereby ultimately improving our country’s overall accounting information transparency and driving the capital market towards the healthier and more effective development direction.This paper selects the influence of accounting information transparency upon corporate performance and enterprise’s cost of equity capital as the content of research on the economic consequences of accounting information transparency. Firstly, this paper makes demarcation on the conceptual connotation of accounting information transparency, which is broken down into two dimensions as the transparency of accounting information content itself and the transparency of accounting information transfer (disclosure). On the basis of this conceptual connotation, the thoughts and methods to measure accounting information transparency are puts forward. Secondly, this paper makes a theoretical analysis on the mechanism and paths for accounting information transparency to make effect on cost of equity capital and corporate business performance. Thirdly, this paper adopts the data of the main board market of Shenzhen Stock Exchange of our country from2008to2012to arrive at the conclusion:(1) Both the accounting information transfer (disclosure) and the long-term accounting information content itself component of accounting information transparency have a positive impact on corporate performance, while the short-term accounting information content itself component of accounting information transparency has no salient impact.(2)Both dimensions of the accounting transparency, including the transparency of accounting information transfer condition and the short-term and long-term accounting information content itself, have a salient negative impact on corporate equity capital. Fourthly, on the basis of the findings of the research, this paper proposes the targeted policy suggestions at different stakeholders.