Research On The Impact Of Economic Policy Uncertainty On Earnings Management Of Listed Companies In China

Since the global financial crisis in 2008,the world economy has been fluctuating constantly,especially the emergence of the epidemic in2020,which has made the world economy "cooler" worse.As the world’s second largest economy,China is in a critical period of deepening reform and opening up and accelerating the transformation of its economic development mode.Facing the complexity and uncertainty of the domestic and foreign environment,the government has issued and adjusted a series of macroeconomic policies in recent years.Frequent changes in macroeconomic policies will not only affect macroeconomi c fields such as the economic cycle and employment,but also affect the microeconomic behavior of enterprises.At present,scholars at home and abroad have discussed the impact of economic policy uncertainty on corporate investment,financing,innovation and other behaviors.Earnings management,as a typical corporate financial behavior,is also affected by economic policy uncertainty.Therefore,it is necessary to deeply explore the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and earnings management behavior.This paper examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty,an external environmental factor,on the earnings management behavior of Chinese listed companies and its impact path,and further analyzes whether there is a differential impact on the relationship between the company’s willingness to disclose information and the nature of property rights,and the effect of the improvement of corporate earnings quality on the adverse impact of economic policy uncertainty.This paper selects China’s A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2020 as a sample,and draws the following research conclusions:(1)Economic policy uncertainty inhibits the degree of corporate earnings management;(2)The decrease in debt financing and the increase in investor attention inhibited the degree of corporate earnings management;(3)Heterogeneity analysis found that economic policy uncertainty has a more significant inhibitory effect on earnings management in companies that voluntarily disclose information and state-owned enterprises;(4)Further analysis shows that the improvement of earnings quality can alleviate the adverse impact of economic policy uncertainty on corporate investment and financing behavior.This paper studies and analyzes the impact of economic policy uncertainty on earnings management and its impact path.To a certain extent,it enriches the research on the economic consequences of economic policy uncertainty in the context of China,and also expands the research framework of the influencing factors of earnings management.The conclusions of this paper provide empirical evidence and theoretical support for the government to issue policies and companies to disclose information under the macro environment.