近年来,关联交易盈余管理愈演愈烈,极大地损害了投资者的利益。以往大量研究提供了上市公司操纵应计项目及线下项目进行盈余管理的证据,本文则以中国上市公司2002--2004年的面板数据为研究样本,首次大样本检验关联交易、线下项目与盈余管理的关系。本文的主要结论包括:(1)有配股盈余管理动机的公司的第一类关联交易(通常计入线上项目的关联交易)比例显著高于控制样本,第三类关联交易(担保抵押类关联交易)比例显著低于控制样本。(2)有避亏盈余管理动机的公司的第二类关联交易(通常计入线下项目的关联交易)比例显著高于控制样本。(3)有盈余管理动机的公司,当其附属企业集团时,或者其控股股东处于绝对控股地位时,其关联交易比例更高。(4)第一类关联交易与线下项目显著负相关,有盈余管理动机的公司,线下项目较低时第一类关联交易比例较高。(5)配股公司配股后的关联销售和关联采购比例显著低于配股前。扭亏为盈的公司扭亏当年的第二类关联交易比例显著高于扭亏前一年。综上所述,计入线上项目的关联交易是上市公司为获取配股资格而进盈余管理的重要手段,计入线下项目的关联交易是上市公司为避免亏损而进行盈余管理的重要手段;上市公司控股股东处于绝对控股地位时,或控股股东隶属某一企业集团时,关联交易盈余管理行为更严重;进行盈余管理时,线下项目与计入线上项目的关联交易具有替代性。
Recently, earnings management through related party transactions has become more and more popular, which evidently does harm to the interests of investors. While the existing literature has provided lots of evidences on that listed companies manipulate earnings through accruals and below-the-line items, this research paper tests the relationship among related party transactions, below-the-line items and earnings management based on the largescale samples, namely the panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2002 to 2004. We have reached the major conclusions as follows: (1) We find out that companies with the earnings management motivation for rights offering have significantly higher ratio of the first kind of related party transactions (above-the-line items transactions) and significantly lower ratio of the third kind of related party transactions (guarantee and mortgage) than the control companies. (2) Companies with the earnings management motivation for loss-avoiding have significantly higher ratio of the second kind of related party transactions (below-the-line items transactions) than the control companies, (3) Companies with the earnings management motivation have even higher ratio of the related party transaction when they are member companies of business groups or their controlling shareholders can absolutely dominate companies. (4) The first kind of related party transaction is significantly negative correlated with below-the-line items. When the companies with the earnings management motivation have lower below-the-line items, the ratio of their first kind of related party transactions is even higher. (5) Companies that have offered rights have significantly lower ratio of related sales and purchases than before. Companies that have turned losses into profits have significantly higher ratio of the second kind of related party transactions than before. In sum, our evidences demonstrate that the related party transactions in above-the-line items are the important