近年来,内部控制成为监管部门、实务界和学术界关注的热点问题。那么,内部控制会产生什么经济后果?利用厦门大学内控课题组构建的企业内部控制指数,本文考察了内部控制质量对企业债务融资成本的影响。实证结果发现。企业内部控制质量越好,所获取的银行债务融资成本越低。进一步研究发现,相对于国有控股公司,企业内部控制质量对企业银行债务融资成本的影响在非国有控股公司中表现更为显著;相对于金融市场发达地区,企业内部控制质量对企业银行债务融资成本的影响在金融市场不发达的地区表现更为显著;企业内部控制质量对企业银行债务融资成本的影响在产品市场竞争较激烈的行业表现得更为显著。此外,从内部控制的五个一级指标来看,影响企业的银行债务融资成本的一级指标主要是公司的内部环境与控制活动。本文的研究对于进一步了解企业内部控制的经济后果具有重要的理论意义与政策启示。
As Enron in 2001 and the subsequent exposure of a series of accounting scandals, the United States issued the Sarbanes-Oxley act which has caused the United States and the world's emphasis on internal control. In China, the ministry of finance and other five ministries jointly issued the enterprise internal control basic norms in 2008 and a complete set of guidelines in 2010. The public companies are required to assess the effectiveness of their own internal control and disclose the annual self-assessment of it. However, the high cost of internal control caused widely discussion whether it is necessary to enforce. So, which kind of economic consequences will be caused by internal control? This paper investigates the effect of internal control quality on corporate bank credit loan c, ost using the internal control index developed by a research team from Xiamen University as our proxy for internal control quality. We find that the better the quality of internal control, enterprises acquired bank credit loans at the lower financial cost. Further studies show that the effect of internal control quality on corporate bank credit loan cost is more severe in non-stateowned companies compared with state-owned enterprises. Others, the effect of internal control quality on corporate bank credit loan cost is more severe in regions where financial market is not developed and in industries which competition is not intense. The results have important theoretical and practical implications. For enterprises, a good internal control not only reduce the corporate internal irregu- larities and fraud, and improve the efficiency and effect of corporate management, but also reduce information asymmetry between enter- prises and external financial institutions, alleviate the financing constraints and reduce the financing costs. For banks, to comprehension and evaluation client's internal control can help to reduce the credit risk and improve the efficiency of credit allocation of resources. We should continue to support and encour