文献出处：Beck T. The Study of Accounting Information Distortion in Small and Medium Enterprise [J]. Journal of Banking & Finance, 2014, 30(11): 30-43.

（声明：本译文归百度文库所有，完整译文请到百度文库。）

原文

The Study of Accounting Information Distortion

In Small and Medium Enterprise

Author: Beck T.

Abstract

Security market, in fact, is information market, and the timeliness, fairness and completeness of account information is the foundation of public confidence to the market. The falsehood of accounting information strongly influents whether security market can work well. With introducing Coherence Theory and Procedural Rationality, the article redefines fairness and falsehood of accounting information, then analysis the issue from perspective of Game Theory.

As to the concept of fairness of accounting information, the article integrates Procedural Rationality with Coherence Theory. That is, the accounting information can be deemed true only if the procedure and institution of accounting rule-making are rational and the accounting information is produced and disclosed strictly according to the rules.

From previous definition, the falsehood of accounting information can be defined as following two: if the procedure and institution of accounting rule-making are irrational, the accounting information is in falsehood even though it is produce according to rules and standards. Besides, if the rules and standards are of high quality, but not obeyed, the accounting information is also in falsehood.

Keywords: Accounting Information, Game Theory, Procedural Rationality

Rationality is one of presumptions in economics, which means human beings always make decision which can maximum his or her interests. And the presumption restricts the areas, where the methods in economics can be used. Therefore, it is necessary to refine the study areas. The article is to study on the falsehood of accounting information induced by rule constitutors and executors who have incentive not to follow the procedure of rule-making and implementing when institution and procedure are irrational. According to categories of falsehood of accounting information, the article is focused on player’s actions and strategies under irrational institution and procedure which lead to the institutional and intended falsehood. So the behavioral falsehood and falsehood led by humane-beings’ limited rationality are excluded.

During the process of accounting rule-making, different game players have different claims for accounting information according to their own interests. They have their own payoff functions, and have different request for accounting standards. The parties will make the rules partial to themselves and advocate their own requests from their own position and interest. The ideal model for accounting rule making is cooperative game with Nash equilibrium of sub-game perfect-ness under dynamic and completely-informative environment. It is more costly for rational men to breaking the equilibrium than keeping under such circumstances. Then it becomes Pareto Perfection when nobody wants to break up. However, the ideal model is hard to attain. And conditions are needed to provide to get close to the ideal model. That is to say, a set of rational institution and procedure must be set up to guarantee all the decisions made by each player maximum the welfare of society. And the rationality of institution and procedure should be embodied by representation of rule-makers and independence of rule-making organization.

The structure of corporate governess comes from the conflicts within stockholders and the ones between shareholder and management. Accounting information is the warranty for shareholder to split up profits, and the

track record on management’s performance. In practice, it is common that management provides accounting information; controlling stockholders get more information at first place; and the potential investors decides their action by watching the movement of stock price and controlling shareholders. The features of the phenomenon are as follow: there is no perfect information between players, the game process is dynamic. Based on these features, the author builds up dynamic model with imperfect information, and makes the conclusion that minority only cares about the payoff of majority, the majority considers their own interest and the payoff of the management, the management needs to think of the payoff of the majority, the minority and their own. The factors influencing their actions are given. In reality, it is impossible for government regulatory department and the management to make a coalition. And the sequence of the game is not as clear as the one in the game between shareholders and management.

Therefore, a static model with imperfect information is founded. Deducing from the model, government regulatory department can ensure the fairness of accounting information by enhancing efforts in supervising, raising the social benefits and rewards of effective efforts, increasing the punishment of disclosing false accounting information and so on.

During the game between management and auditors, currently, the management provides information at first, and then auditor conducts auditing and present auditing statement. There is a clear sequence in the game. And a dynamic model with imperfect information is built up. We concludes that raising the punishment, enhancing the efforts in inspecting and other measures can be done to guarantee the quality of accounting information.

By summing up theoretical analysis above, we can deal with the falsehood of accounting information in following ways: consummating the rulemaking procedures; nurturing mature market of controlling shareholders; construct all-round supervising system; enhancing functions of the board; and raising the independence and competence of auditors.

The United States of Enron, WorldCom, Xerox and so on a series of accounting scandals, questions about accounting information distortion. The discussion of the rest of the world. The steady development of securities market, not only related to the current performance of listed companies, and investors more expectations about the future of the market development and the establishment of the relevant investment confidence. The key to ensure the stability of this information is the public company accounting information disclosed the question, namely disclosure information must ensure that the securities price timely, accurate and comprehensive to reflect the fundamentals of each listed company management and the risk of the securities market conditions. Only on this basis, the investors to make reasonable expectations about the future, and then make your own risk tolerance of investment options, buy securities for their own preference of the enterprise; Companies, in turn, from investors get the corresponding resource allocation, in this way, the financing costs and risk of the enterprise and the prospect of the business performance, to achieve the purpose of the securities market efficient allocation of resources. And on this basis, the regulatory agencies and governments to find problems in a timely manner, effectively protect the rights and interests of investors, and can prevent market system risks. So the stock market is, in fact, market information, accounting information disclosure is timely, accurate, comprehensive build public confidence in the securities market.

Ensure the securities market information disclosure timely, accurate and comprehensive is a long-term and complicated system engineering, it is not includes only the securities regulator information disclosure regulation system is perfect, more depends on whether the corporate governance structure to improve the strengthening the supervision of the stakeholders, accountants and lawyers and other intermediaries can remain neutral and integrity to perform their duties, investment bank or brokerage, conscientious, and securities market regulation legislation whether complete, to ensure fair and effective exercise of judicial supervision, media and social supervision by public opinion effectively in time, the government and corporate relations is an embarrassment and a series of institutional arrangements.

Famous economist professor Simon, Simon pointed out in his theory of "bounded rationality" due to the person's cognition is Limited, people grasp of the information is incomplete, inadequate understanding and application of information to the people, therefore, are Bounded Rationality (Bounded Rationality).On the basis of bounded Rationality, he make a clear distinction between the rational standard of Procedural and Rationality of new classical economics to Substantive standards, distinguish the Procedural Rationality (Procedural Rationality) and the rational (Rationality of outcome/product) which is also called the substantial Rationality (Substantive Rationality).If procedural rationality refers to the behavior is the result of the due consideration, then the behavior is procedural rationality.

Therefore, the behavior of the program depends on its rational production process. Results rational is refers to the established conditions and, within the prescribed scope of when behavior is suitable for a given target it is the result of rational. Thus, emphasizes the procedural rationality of rational behavior mechanism, itself is not a behavior results, because the result is always the result of a certain behavior program, program so if behavior is rational, is properly considered, the result of the behavior is also acceptable; The reason, on the other hand, pay attention to behavior result should comply with the established goals, do not pay attention to produce this behavior results the behavior of the process. Classical economics refers to the rational, in fact, a kind of substantive rationality, is a completely rational, given the behavior hypothesis (complete information, unlimited computing power and zero information processing fees) and the behavior of the target (utility maximization), behavior would be natural to achieve its purpose. Simon thinks, under the environment of uncertainty, people could not accurately predict the future, thus unable to act according to the result of rational way, can only rely on adopting a rational procedures to reduce the degree of future uncertainty, therefore, and should take reason instead of the reason for studying the economics program.

From the view of procedural rationality, emphasized the authenticity of accounting information is whether accounting information generation and disclosure process Rational, rather than the accounting information itself is in accordance with

the established goals, that is, if the disclosure of accounting information generation and is rational, the result of the accounting behavior, accounting information itself can be accepted, you can think of accounting information is true, on the other hand, argue that the accounting information is distorted, similar to follow under the theory of the concept of the accounting information authenticity. Under the rational process view, the focus of the authenticity of accounting information is transferred to the accounting behavior process, namely, the process of formation and disclosure of accounting information.

译文

中小企业会计信息失真研究

作者：贝克

摘要

证券市场实际上是信息市场，会计信息披露是否及时、准确、全面是建立公众对证券市场的信心基础。会计信息失真问题是关乎到证券市场能否有效运转。本文引入真实性的遵循性理论与程序理性观，对会计信息真实性、会计信息失真等概念做出重新阐述，并在此基础上采用博弈论的分析方法对会计信息失真问题做出分析。

在会计信息的真实性这一概念上，本文将综合采用遵循性理论与程序理性观的观点：如果会计准则制定过程及其有关的制度安排是理性的，会计信息是按照公认的会计准则加工处理并对外披露的，则可认为该会计信息是真实的。从这一定义出发，会计信息失真可以从以下两个角度定义：如果假设会计准则制定过程及其有关的制度安排是理性不能成立，也就是，会计准则不科学、不合理，即使会计行为严格遵循了会计准则，会计信息也可能是失真的；另一方面，如果会计准则是高质量的，但在执行过程中未能得到严格遵守，相关的制度安排存在问题，会计信息失真也可能是失真的。

关键词：会计信息； 博弈论；程序理性；

理性人假设是经济学的一般假设，指的是人所做的决策都是使自己的利益最

大化（完备理性的一种）。因此经济学研究方法的运用在一定程度上受到这一假设的限。本文所要研究的会计信息失真是在制度安排非理性下，会计规则的制定者和执行人有动机（经济学上的理性）不按照规则制定和执行的程序而导致的会计信息失真。本文所要研究的会计信息失真把出于人类有限理性所造成的失真排除在研究的范围之外，即由执行者的有限理性所造成的行为性失真和有规则制定者的有限理性所导致的规则性失真。本文将着重研究制度安排非理性时的规则性失真和违规性失真各参与人的行动与决策。

在会计准则制定的这场博弈中，会计信息的利益相关者出于自身的利益考虑,往往对会计信息的揭示有不同的要求。各博弈方都有自己支付函数，对会计准则的要求也不尽相同。在会计准则制定过程中,各利益方为了自己的利益,都想使会计准则对自己更有利,都从自己的特殊的利益或从自己特殊地位出发,来提出自己的要求。会计准则的理想模式是完全信息动态的合作博弈形成的“子博弈精炼纳什均衡”下的合作博弈。在这种均衡战略的组合下, 就理性人而言, 打破这种均衡的成本大于其收益, 没有任何人有积极性打破这种均衡, 因而达到帕累托最优, 社会效益最大化。当然，理想的模式是难以实现的, 会计准则制定过程应积极创造有利于博弈充分的条件去接近这种理想模式。博弈充分的条件就必须建立起一个理性的制定过程和机制，而这一过程和机制的理性应体现在规则制定者的代表性和制定机构的独立性两方面。

公司治理结构是为解决股东之间的矛盾与股东和管理当局之间的矛盾而产生的。就会计信息而言，它既是股东之间分配利润的基础，也是评价管理当局经营业绩的基础，必然也是这两者之间利益矛盾的焦点。在实践中，一般是上市公司先提供关于公司经营状况的会计信息，控制性股东（大股东）一般能在第一时间获得较多关于公司经营状况的信息，潜在投资者（中小股东）通过观察市场中股票的价值和控制性股东的行为来决定自己的行动。这一现象有如下特征：各参与人之间存在着不完全信息，所有参与人不是在同一时刻开始行动，后行动的参与人会观察先行动参与人的行为，因而博弈过程是动态的。根据这些特征，我们建立了这一不完全信息动态博弈模型，并得出中小股东关心的只是大股东的支付情况，大股东只要考虑自身和管理当局的支付，管理者当局需要关心自身、大股东以及中小股东的支付情况的结论。（本译文归百度文库所有，完整译文请到百度文库）