会计系2019双周论坛第一讲

主 题：The Myth about Public versus Private Enforcement of Securities Laws – Evidence from Chinese Comment Letters 证券监管执法的公私之谜——来自中国交易所问询函的经验证据

主讲人: 张磊（加拿大Simon Fraser University助理教授）

协调人: 张敏、戴璐

时 间：2019-01-04 13:00

地 点：明商1008会议室

语 言：英文

Prior work based on cross-country evidence reaches different conclusions regarding the efficacy of public versus private enforcement of securities laws (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, and Shleifer 2006; Jackson and Roe 2009). China presents a unique opportunity to study public enforcement of mandatory disclosure when private enforcement is largely absent. Using a hand-collected sample of comment letters (CLs) on annual reports issued by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, we first show that price reaction to CL announcements is negative and significant, suggesting that the market views significant deficiency in firms’ disclosure as bad news. We then examine whether the Exchange’s oversight affects firms’ accounting quality in terms of earnings management and disclosure and find no significant effect. Finally, we show that CL recipients are more likely to receive CLs in the future and are also more likely to be sanctioned by regulators. We conclude that in China where public enforcement is the only game in town, the Exchange is capable of identifying significance malfeasance and follows up with more scrutiny and sanctions.