Study On The List Companies' Response To The Mandatory Accounting Changes

Mandatory accounting changes is among the core content of the research of positive accounting theory. Lots of fruitful studies have been made by local and overseas accounting scholars. But these researches have not been able comprehensively to study the company's response to MAC in our country.The paper examined how managers use accounting means to response to the imposition of Mandatory accounting changes. Then, theoretic support and policy suggestions were provided for the supervision of stock market of Chinese listed companies, and for scientifically constituting fiscal criterion, and for consummating the accounting information disclosing system. Furthermore, the paper hope to promote the research on the object of accounting policy .The paper uses the real data disclosed in listed companies'annual report between 1998 and 2003, to research the company's response to MAC empirically. The simple sample statistics indicate that listed companies are more influenced by MAC in the year of 1999 and 2001 than in other years, moreover, the companies preferred adjusting equity to adjusting current income; Univariate T test indicate that it has no remarkable differences between Synthesis influence of MAC and its responses(including voluntary accounting changes, Items below the line and accounting error) in the year of 1999, comparatively, it has remarkable differences in the year of 2001. this finding suggests that listed companies have'offset'behavior in 1999, but have'write-down'behavior in 2001; Path analyzing model indicate that: listed companies have used the'voluntary accounting changes'and'items blow the line'to response to the negative influence of MAC, which consistent with the findings of Univariate T test. The variable of Accounting error haven't pass the Significant examination, which means that listed companies haven't used it to reply the imposition of MAC.