1、 1 中文 3875 字 本科毕业论文（设计） 外 文 翻 译 外文题 Does corporate transparency contribute to efficient resource allocation? 外文出处 会计 研究杂志 外文作者 Jerer.Francis 完成日期 2011 年 1 月 6 日 原文 ： Does Corporate Transparency Contribute to Efficient Resource Allocation? This paper examines whether a countrys corporate transparency
2、 environment, which includes the quality of accounting information, contributes to efficient resource allocation. Based on a cross-country study of 37 manufacturing industries in 37 countries, we provide three pieces of related evidence. First, we find the contemporaneous correlations in industry gr
3、owth rates across country pairs are higher when there is a greater level of corporate transparency in the country pairs, after controlling for country-level economic and financial development. Second, we find the influence of transparency on these correlationsis stronger when country pairs are at si
4、milar levels of economic development(GDP). Finally, when we control for the level of transparency explained by a countrys institutions in place, we find that residual transparency (unexplained by country-level factors) is associated with industry-specific growth rates. Taken together, the results ar
5、e consistent with corporate transparency facilitating the allocation of resources across industry sectors. This study sheds light on whether a countrys information environment better aligns ex ante growth opportunities with actual growth. We use the term corporate 2 transparency to describe the coun
6、trys information environment, which includes accounting disclosures. Levine 1997, p. 695 contends that “high information costs may keep capital from flowing to its highest value use” and hence impede economic growth. Given the significance of information costs, a natural question to ask is what fact
7、ors serve to ameliorate these costs and improve resource allocation. to provide supplemental evidence on the resource allocation effects of corporate transparency, we follow Bekaert et al. 2007 to measure a countrys level of ex ante growth opportunities using the price-earnings ratio of global indus
8、try portfolios weighted by a countrys industrial mix. We find that only countries with high transparency have an association between ex ante global growth opportunities of firms (within a country) and the countrys realized ex post growth in real GDP per capita. We also find that growth opportunities
9、 were converted into more real growth when analyst coverage increased over time. These results are consistent with the argument that firms in more transparent settings are better able to exploit global growth shocks, and thus, these economies achieve higher realized growth rates. Empirical evidence
10、that corporate transparency affects the efficient allocation of capital is important for several reasons. First, as Claessens 2006 points out, the private sector market-based investment process has now become more important in most economies around the world. Specifically, a growing proportion of co
11、untries investments are undertaken by the private sector (as opposed to state-owned enterprises). This trend highlights the need to understand factors that influence the efficiency with which private markets are able to allocate resources between competing uses. Second, the growth in financial inter
12、mediaries and institutional investors has resulted in improved capital mobility (Claessens 2006). While important, improved capital mobility by itself is unlikely to matter if financial intermediaries are unable to direct resources toward potentially profitable growth opportunities due to informatio
13、n frictions. Again, this raises the question as to the role of the countrys information environment on efficient resource allocations. Finally, reforms such as deregulation are increasingly exposing firms to market forces and risks (Claessens 2006). Given the heightened level of competition, there i
14、s an even 3 greater need for more precise and timely information to ensure accurate allocation of capital to the most valued uses (Bushman and Smith 2001). We depart from prior research that has largely emphasized the role of financial institutions in the form of public and private capital markets i
15、n mitigating information costs and contributing to growth (Levine and Zervos 1998, Rajan and Zingales 1998, Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic 1998).We depart from this research in two key ways. First, we focus directly on the role of a countrys information environment. We utilize a comprehensive measure
16、of corporate transparency that takes into consideration not only financial reporting but also the development of a countrys information intermediaries. Second, we focus on the composition of growth, that is, industry-specific growth rate comovements rather than the overall level of growth. This shif
17、t in focus stems from our interest in understanding whether corporate transparency facilitates the intersectoral allocation of scarce resources. The study adds to extant literature, which points to the positive role of financial reporting on investment behavior. For example, Bushman, Piotroski, and
18、Smith 2007 document that more conservative financial reporting limits overinvestment in activities with deteriorating opportunities and/or results in quicker termination of loss-producing ventures. Our approach focuses more broadly on the information environment and its role in the allocation of res
19、ources toward industries that experience positive growth shocks and away from industries that experience negative shocks. The evidence is consistent with corporate transparency facilitating efficient asset allocation across industry sectors. At face value, these results provide evidence that better
20、quality financial reporting and disclosure systems in a country not only serve to increase corporate transparency but also contribute to the efficiency of resource allocation decisions across industry sectors, over and above the previously documented effects of a countrys economic and financial deve
21、lopment. In sum, the results suggest that a countrys information environment contributes to better resource allocation after controlling for a countrys institutions and its level of economic and financial development, although we cannot rule out the possibility that these associations are the result of other country-level factors that affect both financial
