Research On The Impact Of Peer Effect Of Corporate Tax Avoidance On Stock Price Crash Risk

In recent years,the international tax environment has undergone several tax reforms,and enterprises are in a highly market-oriented environment,but also face more choices and challenges.Tax avoidance also happens from time to time in enterprises,becoming an important tax planning strategy for enterprises.There are also two different views on corporate tax avoidance in academic circles: on the one hand,corporate tax avoidance can reduce corporate cash outflow and thus increase corporate cash retention.Taxpayers hope to reduce their tax burden through reasonable tax avoidance means so as to enhance their own value.On the other hand,according to the agency theory and information asymmetry theory,corporate tax avoidance increases corporate information opacity and opportunistic behavior of management,which increases the uncertainty of stock price collapse for listed companies.However,strengthening financial stability has always been the focus of the economic work of the Party and the state.Preventing and resolving stock price crash risk and realizing the healthy and stable development of the stock market is an important goal.Regulators,academia and practice circles have carried out multi-dimensional and multi-level exploration on the causes and governance mechanism of stock price crash risk,but the continuous emergence of complex factors at home and abroad still requires further research.In the past two decades,the study of "peer effect" has been introduced into the field of corporate finance.The social network provides a secret channel for the information transmission between enterprises and peer enterprises,making the tax avoidance behavior of enterprises vulnerable to the influence of peer enterprises.Whether the peer effect of corporate tax avoidance will inhibit the risk of corporate stock price crash is an important empirical research problem that needs to be tested,which has not attracted academic attention.This paper tries to seize this research opportunity.Based on the theory of social relations network,this paper empirically tests peer effect of corporate tax avoidance and the impact of tax avoidance of peer enterprises on stock price crash risk,proposes the mechanism of action from three dimensions of innovation,investment and management self-interest,and makes a multi-angle heterogeneity analysis.All A-share listed companies listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2021 were selected as research samples to construct multiple regression models and conduct A series of robustness tests to ensure the reliability of the conclusions.The findings are as follows:(1)there are obvious "industry peer effect" and "regional peer effect" in corporate tax avoidance.(2)Industry peer effect can significantly inhibit the risk of stock price crash,but regional peer effect has no significant effect on the risk of stock price crash;The mechanism analysis shows that the peer effect of corporate tax avoidance can inhibit the risk of stock price collapse by promoting corporate innovation and investment and inhibiting the self-interest of management.The results show that the reduction of the overall tax burden of the industry provides the resource guarantee for the high-quality development of enterprises.(3)Heterogeneity analysis found that the negative impact of corporate tax avoidance industry peer effect on stock price crash risk is more obvious in listed companies with higher analyst attention,higher internal control quality and weak product market competition pressure.The results show that improving corporate governance environment is an important factor to reduce the risk of stock price crash.The marginal contributions of this paper are as follows: First,existing literature mainly focuses on the influencing factors of a single corporate tax avoidance behavior.Based on the peer effect theory,this paper studies the exogenous influence of peer effect of corporate tax avoidance on corporate tax avoidance behavior,expanding the research perspective of corporate tax avoidance.Second,most of the existing researches on the peer effect of corporate behavior and decision-making focus on the existence and influencing factors of peer effect,while this paper focuses on the peer effect of corporate tax avoidance behavior and its economic consequences,which enriches and expands the literature on peer effect.Third,most of the existing literature analyzes the positive correlation effect of corporate tax avoidance aggressiveness on stock price crash risk.However,this paper takes the lead in exploring the inhibitory effect of corporate tax avoidance peer effect on stock price crash risk,which not only enrichis the research on stock price crash risk,but also provides useful enlightenment for tax authorities,capital market regulatory authorities and enterprises.