| Earnings management is a key problem in the field of financial accounting,domestic and foreign scholars mainly from the perspective of the capital market to explore the effect of the motivation of earnings management and corporate governance structure on earnings management,but few scholars have explored the impact of debt financing on earnings management from the debt market.On the one hand,debt financing can play a governance role in the enterprise,it can reduce the earnings management behavior;on the other hand,because of the constraint of the debt contract,it can induce the earnings management behavior.So in China’s listed companies,there is a space for further research on the impact of debt financing on earnings management.In the past,domestic and foreign academic research on earnings management is mainly based on the static perspective of enterprises,rarely from the perspective of the enterprise life cycle to explore the impact of debt financing on earnings management.In addition,the growth process of the enterprise is similar to that of other life forms in the natural world,and it also needs to experience the process of birth,growth,maturation and aging.When the enterprise is in different stages of life cycle,there are differences in the impact of debt financing on earnings management,it also provides a new idea for the research of this paper.This paper uses the principal agent theory,control theory,information asymmetry theory and debt contract theory and uses the method of combining normative research and empirical research to analyze the function mechanism of earnings management from three aspects of scale,type and duration of debt financing and examines the difference in corporate debt financing in different life cycle on the impact of earnings management with the enterprise life cycle theory.This paper improves the motivation of earnings management and provides a way to understand the influence of debt financing on earnings management in different life cycle stages of enterprises,it also deepen the depth and breadth of research on earnings management.This paper consists of five parts.The first part is the introduction,it introduces the significance of this study,the background of the research ideas and research methods,and reviews the literature on the impact of debt financing on earnings management and the impact of enterprise life cycle on debt financing and earnings management.The second part is the definition and theoretical basis,firstly defines the related concepts,and secondly elaborates on principal agent theory,control theory,information asymmetry theory,debt contract theory and enterprise life cycle theory.The third part is the theoretical analysis and research hypothesis,description of the Chinese listed companies’ debt financing status and earnings management status,demonstrates the debt financing mechanism of earnings management and put forward the research hypothesis.The fourth part is the empirical study,this paper selects the A value of the listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchange in 2010-2015 as the research sample,and uses the model to test the impact of debt financing on the earnings management.On the basis of the above research,we divide the enterprises according to the life cycle to further explore the different impact of debt financing on earnings management in different life cycles.The fifth part is the conclusions and policy recommendations.The results show that:(1)the scale of debt financing is positively correlated with the level of earnings management;bank loan financing is positively correlated with the level of earnings management;long term debt is negatively correlated with the level of earnings management.(2)Compared with the recession enterprise,the debt financing has more obviously positive effect on earnings management in the mature enterprise.Compared with the recession enterprise,long term debt has more obviously negative impact on earnings management in the growing and mature enterprises.This paper studies the impact of earnings management from three aspects of debt financing,and further explores the differences of the above effects from the perspective of enterprise life cycle,finally it provides a new angle of view and a new way of thinking for promoting the benign development of China’s debt market and the restraint of enterprise earnings management. |
