Journal of Accounting Research
Association Between Borrower and Lender State Ownership and Accounting Conservatism
HANWEN CHEN1, JEFF ZEYUN CHEN2, GERALD J. LOBO3, YANYAN WANG1
Article first published online: 19 JUL 2010
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2010.00385.x
©, University of Chicago on behalf of the Accounting Research Center, 2010
Author Information
1Xiamen University
2University of Colorado at Boulder
3University of Houston.
Publication History
Article first published online: 19 JUL 2010
Accepted manuscript online: 19 JUL 2010 12:00AM EST
Received 11 November 2009; accepted 06 July 2010
ABSTRACT
We examine the association between borrower (firm) and lender (bank) state ownership and accounting conservatism for a sample of Chinese firms. We hypothesize that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) adopt less conservative accounting than non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs) because lenders are less concerned with downside risk for SOEs than for NSOEs. We also hypothesize a negative relation between conservatism and the fraction of total loans a firm borrows from state-owned banks (SBs) because SBs have weaker demand for assurance of sufficient net assets to cover loan repayments than non-state-owned banks (NSBs). We find support for both hypotheses. Further analyses reveal that: (1) firms that borrow from commercial SBs exhibit more conservative accounting than firms that borrow from policy SBs and (2) firms adopt more conservative accounting as they get more loans from banks with foreign ownership or exclusively foreign banks. However, the results of these additional analyses are to some extent sensitive to alternative measures of accounting conservatism.
|