外部审计对上市公司投融资行为的影响

According to agency theory, external audit is a monitoring mechanism designed to reduce agency cost. On the other hand, high quality audit could reduce information asymmetry between insiders and external stakeholders. Firms could benefit from audit when they raise capital. Existing researches relevant to role of auditing mainly focus on the effect of audit on accounting information quality, capital (equity or debt) cost, etc. As to the effect of audit on other sides of corporate finance (such as capital structure, size of capital raising, debt maturity structure, financial constraints, and cash holding, etc), however, there is little empirical evidence. Since Richardson (2006), there are plenty of researches about associations between accounting quality and investment efficiency. But, there are little studies about the effect of audit on investment efficiency. .This project uses auditor's reputation, size or industry specialization as proxy of audit quality and investigates the effect of audit on financing and investment behavior of listed companies. The project hypothesizes that high quality audit could facilitate external financing and increase investment efficiency by strengthening monitoring on management and reducing information asymmetry. The project also hypothesizes the role of audit in financing and investment behavior differs according to circumstances. 2SLS and simultaneous equation technical are used to resolve self-selection or endogeneity problem..The project aims to answer such questions: 1) Would external audit influence capital structure (leverage and debt-equity choice)? 2) Could high quality audit increase the size of external financing (including short-term debt finance, long-term debt finance and equity issuance)? 3) Could high quality audit facilitate long-term debt financing and increase debt maturity? Does the effect of audit on long-term debt financing depend on market liberation or corporate governance? 4) Could high quality audit relax financial constraints of listed companies and reduce the cash holding demanded? Would the ownership structure, financial development, and political connection affect the role of audit in relaxing financial constraints? 5) Is quality audit associated with investment efficiency measured by abnormal investment or investment-cash flow sensibility? Is the association between audit quality and investment stronger for firms operating in settings more prone to over-investment (under-investment)? Does the role of audit on investment efficiency depend on the extent of information asymmetry, financial constraints, free cash flow level, market liberation, corporate governance and internal control?.This project links external audit, financing decision and investment behavior of listed companies. It facilitates the understanding of the value of audit and contributes to the literatures about the relation between accounting information, audit and financial decisions.

审计作为一种外部治理机制，对于缓解公司内部人与投资者和债权人的代理冲突、降低内部人与外部人之间的信息不对称具有重要意义。从现有文献来看，学者们从审计与会计信息质量、融资成本的关系等角度对审计的价值进行了广泛研究，并对会计信息质量及有关公司治理机制与融资约束、投资效率之间的关系进行了探讨，但对于审计与公司财务决策之间的关系，研究尚不充分。本项目根据委托代理和信息不对称理论，利用我国上市公司及其审计师数据，在考虑审计师自选择问题的基础上，从融资规模、融资结构、债务期限、融资约束、现金持有量等角度研究审计质量对上市公司融资的影响及不同环境下审计对公司融资影响的差异性，并进一步运用条件性和非条件性检验考察审计质量对上市公司投资效率的影响及不同环境下审计作用的差异性。本项目的价值在于将外部审计与内部财务决策联系起来，同时研究审计质量对上市公司融资行为和投资行为的影响，从而可以更深入地考察审计的价值。

从理论上说，外部审计可以通过加强对管理层的监督、降低信息不对称来影响公司的投融资行为。但在我国，审计与投融资行为之间是否存在显著关系？本项目以会计师事务所规模和行业专长作为审计质量的替代变量，探究外部审计对上市公司客户投融资行为的影响。本项目具体探索如下问题的答案：（1）外部审计是否会影响上市公司的资本结构，包括融资方式的选择？（2）选择高质量审计是否可以提高公司融资规模？（3）高质量审计对债务期限结构的影响如何？（4）高质量审计是否可以缓解公司的融资约束？（5）审计质量对公司投资效率影响如何？. 我们的结果表明，在我国，外部审计确实对上市公司的投融资行为存在显著影响。具体而言，我们发现，选择高质量审计师的公司更可能选择权益融资，其财务杠杆更低；行业专长审计师对于融资规模的影响是非对称的，其可以显著提高权益融资规模，但对债务融资规模没有显著影响；审计师质量对于债务期限的影响是负向的，这与股权代理理论以及披露约束理论相一致；高质量审计师能够缓解公司的融资约束。就投资效率而言，尽管我们没有发现审计师规模与投资效率之间存在显著关系，但发现，事务所组织形式会影响其客户的投资效率，特殊普通合伙制事务所比有限公司制更能抑制客户的过度投资行为。我们的研究还发现，审计对投融资的影响与产权性质、法治环境、信贷环境等环境因素有关。. 本项目的研究将外部审计、公司的投融资行为联结了起来，有助于更好地理解审计的价值，并有助于理解公司投融资行为的影响因素以及审计在其中的作用。