School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University

Wuhan 430072, China

会议时间：2025年3月23日

会议地点：武汉大学经济与管理学院319会议室

主办单位：武汉大学经济与管理学院会计系、武汉大学财务与会计研究所

（每篇论文45分钟：Presenter 25 min; Discussant 15 min; Q&A 5 min）

报告论文摘要

Life Reverence Culture and Workplace Safety: Evidence from Abortion Rates in China

Using regional abortion rates as a proxy for the local culture of reverence for life, this study examines the impact of regional cultural attitudes on corporate workplace safety in China. We find that a stronger local reverence for life is associated with a lower probability of workplace accidents and fewer casualties. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we utilize a quasi-experimental setting provided by the occurrence of earthquakes and the Tianjin explosion in 2015, further confirming a causal relationship between life reverence culture and corporate workplace safety. Moreover, this effect is notably stronger in firms managed by female executives and executives with overseas experience. Additional analyses reveal that local life reverence culture enhances corporate workplace safety by increasing firms' safety-related disclosures and investments. Overall, our findings contribute to the literature examining determinants of workplace safety by highlighting the critical role played by local cultural values.

企业债券发行“短期化”：来自负面冲击视角的解释

债券市场高质量发展为实体经济高质量发展提供夯实保障。然而现阶段，债券发行“短期化”趋势明显，严重制约了债券市场功能性发挥。为此，本文从企业动机角度，以地区债券违约事件发生作为企业负面冲击，分析负面冲击对债券发行“短期化”的影响及其潜在的机制。研究发现：债券违约事件发生降低同地区其他发行人后续新发行债券期限，且该结论在经过一系列稳健性检验后依旧成立；机制检验发现，发行人基于降低债券融资成本、提高债券发行成功率以其迎合投资者投资偏好的动机发行期限更短的债券；异质性分析发现，基准结论在同一只违约债券首次违约事件、AAA级债券违约、债权人保护程度低、事前基本面较差的样本中更显著；扩展性分析表明，国企债券违约降低同地区国企、民企新发行债券期限，而民企债券违约仅能降低民企新发行债券期限；此外，信用债发行期限短期化在抑制发行人研发投入增加的同时还加剧发行人短债长投程度。本文基于企业动机视角给出了债券发行“短期化”的一个新解释，为相关部门提高债券期限提供了一定的政策建议。

The Bright and Dark Side of a News Paywall: Evidence from the Capital Market

We examine the implications of a news paywall for the capital market by exploiting the adoption of a digital subscription model by a major financial media outlet in China as a quasi-experiment. Using a difference-in-difference research design, we find that news articles have more original and detailed content and have higher associations with future earnings news after the paywall implementation. However, paywalled news is associated with higher bid-ask spread and lower market depth, and the association is observed only when there is greater information processing cost. Consistent with greater information asymmetry, further analyses show that the paywall leads to a decrease in retail investors’ activities on social media, but an improvement in the forecast accuracy of financial analysts. We also find that the paywall results in slower price discovery. Overall, we provide novel evidence that a news paywall contributes to an unlevel playing field for investors and impairs market efficiency.

High-skilled Foreign Workers and Firm Information Production: Evidence from the H-1B Visa Program

We posit that, in the era of global business, firms’ information production benefits from hiring high-skilled foreign workers who possess distinct advantages in acquiring and processing information about foreign operations. Employing the drastic reduction of H-1B visa quota in 2004 as a shock to foreign worker supply, we conduct difference-in-differences tests and find that U.S. firms demanding administrative H-1B workers—those primarily involved in information production—experience significant decreases in the frequency of management earnings forecasts post shock, especially when the demand for such workers is high. In contrast, we find no similar effect in relation to demand for non-administrative H-1B workers—those responsible for operational activities. The documented informational effect is more pronounced for firms with greater foreign business exposure and when firms offshore inputs/outputs in countries more dissimilar to the U.S. in culture. Additionally, we find that firms demanding administrative H-1B workers experience significance decreases in the horizon and accuracy of management earnings forecasts after the shock. Further tests exploiting random variation in unfulfilled labor demand via H-1B visa lotteries reinforce our conclusion. Our study underscores the informational role that rank-and-file employees with foreign expertise play in multinational firms.

排污许可管理制度会影响审计收费吗？

排污许可管理制度是绿色高质量发展中守住绿水青山的第一道防线，在企业环境治理中展现出强有力的规制力度。本文手工整理全国排污许可证管理信息平台中企业排污许可证的发证日期和有效期限，以此探究排污许可管理制度对审计收费的影响。实证结果表明，排污许可管理制度将会降低企业的审计收费。通过排除同时期其他政策的影响等一系列稳健性检验后，该结果维持稳健。机制检验的结果表明，排污许可管理制度通过减少审计成本和审计风险降低审计收费。调节效应分析表明，排污许可管理对审计费用的降低作用在国有、公司治理水平差、客户数量少的事务所审计、四大审计的企业中更为显著。本文的结果为审计费用理论的发展提供了增量经验证据，丰富了排污许可管理制度的经济后果研究。

Auditor Home Bias, Client Selection, and Audit Quality

Using proprietary data from auditors’ personal identifications in China, we examine how auditors’ hometown affiliations influence their client selection and audit quality. We find that auditors preferentially select clients from their hometowns, and these engagements are associated with lower audit quality, as indicated by a higher likelihood of financial misstatements, greater discretionary accruals, and increased earnings smoothing. This finding suggests that place attachment, rather than an information advantage, drives auditor home bias. Channel analyses reveal that subsequent audit treatments, rather than initial client selection, are likely to drive this effect. Furthermore, auditors tend to retain their hometown clients even when those clients suffer reputational damage. However, the negative effect of auditor home bias is mitigated by professional training and a strong institutional environment. These findings shed light on the significant role of home bias in shaping auditors’ professional judgment.

Data as Capital: Digital Middle Office and Banking Innovation

In today’s data-driven economy, the strategic management of data has emerged as a pivotal lever for innovation and value creation; yet, little is known about how organizations systematically translate data potential into measurable economic outcomes. This paper investigates the economic consequences of adopting Digital Middle Office (DMO) systems in commercial banks and their impact on banks’ innovation. By conducting a comprehensive textual analysis of 246,764 news articles and bank annual reports, we assess the level of DMO adoption across 370 Chinese banks from 2015 to 2022 using Tencent AI Lab’s open-source Chinese word embedding model alongside ChatGPT 4.0. Our findings reveal that DMO adoption significantly enhances banks’ innovation output, primarily by streamlining operational efficiency and flattening hierarchical structures to facilitate agile decision-making. This positive effect is more pronounced among non-listed banks, institutions with higher digital capability levels, and during periods of high economic policy uncertainty. Our study contributes to the emerging discussion on data valuation by demonstrating how strategic data utilization—embodied in systems like the DMO—bridges the gap between data potential and economic value.

武汉大学会计系简介

学科现状与人才培养

武汉大学会计系依托于武汉大学经济与管理学院强大的经济学、金融学与管理学基础，旨在培养高水平的会计与财务管理专业人才及研究人才。会计系现有会计学和财务管理两个本科专业，设有会计学硕士点（科学学位）和会计学博士点，会计专业硕士（MPAcc）、资产评估专业硕士和审计专业硕士，形成本科生、硕士生、专业硕士和博士生多层次、多形式并存，科学学位与专业学位教育相结合的教学与培养模式。

本系现有专任教师22人，其中教授8人，副教授7人，讲师7人。师资队伍中，教育部国家级人才计划特聘教授1人，国家级高层次青年人才计划1人，教育部“新世纪优秀人才支持计划”3人，财政部“会计名家培养工程”1人，财政部“会计领军特殊支持计划”1人，财政部“会计领军人才”计划3人，武汉大学“珞珈特聘教授”2人，武汉大学“珞珈青年学者”2人。

学术科研

会计系研究领域涉及财务会计、公司金融、公司治理、审计、税收等多个方面，主要研究方向包括：（1）会计与资本市场；（2）审计；（3）公司财务；（4）管理会计。学术论文已发表于《The Accounting Review》《Review of Financial Studies》《Contemporary Accounting Research》《Review of Accounting Studies》《Journal of Law and Economics》《Journal of Corporate Finance》《Journal of Banking and Finance》《Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance》《Journal of Business Finance & Accounting》《Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory》《经济研究》《管理世界》《会计研究》《金融研究》等国内外重要学术期刊，以及由中国经济科学出版社、中国社会科学出版社、清华大学出版社、北京大学出版社等全国优秀出版社出版发行了多部有较高影响力的专著、译著和教材。科研项目方面，会计系已主持国家自然科学基金重点项目、面上项目、青年项目，国家社会科学基金重大项目、重点项目，教育部人文社会科学重大攻关项目、规划基金项目、青年基金项目等各类科研课题。

在学术交流方面，我系经常保持与海外著名大学的会计系进行多种方式的交流，力求在教学与研究方面与国际一流水平接轨。本系与美国北卡罗来纳大学、范德堡大学、华盛顿州立大学、多伦多大学、新加坡管理大学、香港大学、香港科技大学、香港中文大学、香港理工大学等境外高校建立了学术交流与合作关系，每年都会举办一届武汉大学“珞珈会计论坛”年度学术研讨会与“珞珈会计博士论坛”学术研讨会，并定期举办“蓝月亮珞珈会计论坛”等学术交流活动。

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武汉大学校园地图

武汉大学经济与管理学院；珞珈山庄；樱花大道