党的十九大报告强调需要“转变政府职能，深化简政放权，创新监管方式”，以及“健全金融监管体系，守住不发生系统性金融风险的底线”。这是从国家战略层面明确了金融监管在风险防控中的重要性。在此背景下，证券监管机构正积极推进资本市场监管体制改革的新方向。伴随着2013年上市公司信息披露直通车制度的正式实施，沪深证券交易所对上市公司财务报告的一线监管由“事前审核”转向“事后审核”，问询制度成为“事后审核”的重要手段。自2019年以来，我国证监会积极推进“以信息披露为中心的科创板试点注册制”来促进资本市场高质量发展的重大举措，使我国注册制改革下问询监管的市场化监督机制越发重要。审核问询制度作为我国转型经济发展中一种非处罚性的预防监管方式，是我国资本市场信息披露监管模式的重大变革，也是“放松管制、加强监管”这一理念在资本市场监管中的贯彻。问询函是一种监督公司会计政策的合规性、信息披露质量、日常投资及并购重组等重大财务决策乃至防范资本市场金融风险的重要方式之一。作为资本市场监管理念转变的重要举措，问询制度的监管效果受到实务界和学术界的共同关注。具有中国特色的“刨根问底”式问询的监管效力如何？国内关于问询函的研究才刚刚兴起，一线监管问询对公司投资行为的有效识别与治理机制研究亟待探究。

作为宏观经济增长的微观基础，投资活动是公司价值创造的一项重要战略性决策和原动力，对公司持续、健康发展至关重要。然而，当前我国转型经济发展中，诸多上市公司面临着资源配置低效、产能过剩等的窘境；并且公司的投资决策行为深受信息不对称和代理问题的重要影响。对有损于公司价值创造、资本市场金融风险的公司过度投资行为，以及公司过热投资所造成后果之产能过剩的情景中，问询监管政策可能会重点关注。我国2014—2018年沪深交易所发出的年报问询函中，且存在过度投资的样本公司中，大约有46%上市公司被问询涉及“投资行为”，并购问询函数量与年报中的“投资特征”问询函数量也旗鼓相当。这一问询监管新政的实施为深入探索交易所问询机制对公司过度投资行为的一线监管有效性提供了研究契机。因此，基于交易所问询监管的决策动因及其经济后果的研究架构，本书主要研究如下重要问题：①交易所问询函能否有效甄别公司过度投资行为，即历史过度投资行为严重的公司是否易于被监管问询？在过度投资行为后果特征之产能过剩公司中，问询监管是否给予高度关注？②基于过度投资行为的问询监管识别后，问询监管能否有效抑制公司未来过度投资行为？这种问询治理作用是否在具有“投资特征”的问询监管中更加明显？③如果问询监管能够对公司未来过度投资行为发挥积极治理效用，问询监管的影响机理是什么？④在问询监管对公司过度投资行为的直接效应进行检验后，从威慑效应视角，问询监管在资本市场中是否具有威慑性的“溢出效应”？本书将从同行业、同地区公司和同一企业集团公司三个层面来探究问询监管对未被问询公司过度投资行为的溢出监管效用。

基于审核问询制度嵌入治理，本书以2014—2018年中国沪深 A股上市公司及其年报问询函和并购问询函为研究样本，从公司过度投资视角考察了问询监管的决策动因及其经济后果，研究发现：（1）在控制公司财务业绩和治理特征的基础上，交易所问询监管能有效甄别上市公司的过度投资行为。具体表现为历史过度投资行为严重、产能过剩的公司更易于被监管问询。这说明，交易所在问询决策中关注了国家金融风险防控范畴中的公司过度投资行为，并将供给侧结构性改革重点事项之产能过剩化解问题融入问询监管决策函数中。

（2）从问询监管的经济后果方面，问询监管对公司未来过度投资行为具有明显的治理效果，这种积极治理作用在“投资特征”问询监管情景中更加明显。采用倾向得分匹配法的双重差分（PSM-DID）等方法控制内生性后，该研究结论也稳健。进一步从年报问询函的文本内容，将“投资特征”的年报问询函区分为历史性投资的年报问询函和前瞻性投资的年报问询函后，发现历史性投资的年报问询函和前瞻性投资的年报问询函对公司未来过度投资行为均具有显著的治理效用，这从问询关注公司历史性投资事项抑或前瞻性投资事项方面更体现了交易所精准问询施策的路径效果。

（3）信息不对称和代理问题是助长公司过度投资行为的两个重要因素。基于这一理论路径，发现问询监管对公司过度投资行为的治理作用在信息不对称较高（盈余信息不透明度、分析师跟踪较少和机构投资者持股较低）和代理问题突出的公司中更明显。其中，本书将代理问题刻画为代理成本考量和代理行为特征，代理行为特征包括管理层过度自信、超额现金持有和激进负债行为。代理成本考量方面，发现问询监管对公司过度投资的治理作用在双重代理成本较严重的公司中更显著；在代理行为特征中，问询监管对公司过度投资的治理作用在管理层过度自信较高、公司持有较多超额现金和具有较高激进负债行为的公司中更显著。

（4）基于威慑效应理论，问询监管在资本市场中还具有一定的溢出威慑效力。问询监管对同行业或同一企业集团内未被问询公司的过度投资行为治理具有“溢出效应”，这种溢出效用在“投资特征”的问询监管情景中也有呈现。但本书未发现问询监管在同地区公司过度投资行为中的“溢出效应”。

本书的研究兼具重要的学术贡献和实践价值：第一，从公司过度投资视角提供了我国交易所问询监管特色的经验证据，拓展了审核问询决策的影响因素研究。本书基于我国注册制改革下年报问询和并购问询的监管新政，不仅发现了我国的问询监管对公司过度投资行为的甄别能力，还发现交易所结合了国家宏观经济政策，一线监管问询中对供给侧结构性改革重点之一的“产能过剩”企业的投资活动更为关注。在转型经济发展的中国，交易所在执行问询监管时，更有可能考虑国家顶层政策设计意愿，将资本市场金融风险防范事项之公司过度投资以及供给侧结构性改革重要项目之产能过剩化解议题融入问询决策函数中，以更好地推动问询制度服务于资本市场的高质量发展。本书研究对融合问询函的公共信息披露监督机制来推进我国供给侧结构性改革，如通过问询机制来有效化解企业过热投资的信息风险、产能过剩风险等具有重要政策启示。

第二，从公司过度投资视角提供了我国注册制改革下问询监管的有效性问题，拓展了精准问询施策的经济后果研究。以往问询监管经济后果的研究较少关注到公司投资行为，本书则从公司过度投资角度分析了问询监管的治理机制，尤其是“投资特征”问询监管的治理效果，既丰富了证券监管机构对资本市场的问询政策研究，也对完善交易所问询监管的精准性和分类问询机制的构建具有重要启示。

第三，从监管问询的公共信息披露层面丰富了公司过度投资行为治理路径的相关研究。不同于以往公司投资行为的传统治理机制研究，本书从交易所问询函的非处罚预防性监管视角，在信息不对称和代理问题框架下将问询监管制度纳入公司非效率投资行为的治理机制中，丰富了公司投资行为治理的相关文献；同时从审核问询层面来规范公司投资事项的信息披露、提高公司投资的价值效应和有效化解资本市场过热投资的金融风险提供了新证据。

第四，基于公司过度投资形成的重要因素，从信息不对称和双重代理问题考察了问询监管对公司过度投资的不同治理效应，能够在一定程度上丰富公司过度投资的形成机制的文献，更加清晰认识交易所问询监管发挥治理作用的内在机理，对全面解读公司过度投资行为的问询治理机制具有重要启示。在政策实践方面，交易所实施一线问询监管时要重点关注信息不对称严重、公司代理成本较高，以及管理层更具过度自信特质、公司持有大量超额现金和激进负债行为，此种公司中更有动机或能力实施高风险的投资行为，应充分发挥问询函一线监管的精准度。

第五，基于威慑理论，从同行业和同一企业集团层面，发现了问询监管对公司过度投资行为治理的溢出效应，丰富了问询监管政策在资本市场中的威慑效应研究；同时也从问询机制视角对企业集团的风险管理具有重要启示。以往文献研究表明企业集团成员公司存在较高的过度投资水平及风险传染性等问题。本书则从交易所问询监管的信息嵌入治理角色，考察了问询监管对企业集团成员公司过度投资行为的溢出效应，这对防控企业集团组织内部的投资风险具有重要意义，也为企业集团的外部风险管理提供了重要经验证据。此外，从监管资源的有限性视角，关于问询溢出效应的经验证据可为监管机构在分配有限的监管资源、提高问询监管效率方面提供有益参考。

概括而言，本书基于新制度经济学的研究范式，从公司投资行为视角研究了我国注册制改革下审核问询制度的有效性，在问询监管的影响因素及其经济后果两方面拓展了非处罚性预防监管之问询制度的研究。本书研究结论对通过问询监管机制来防范公司过度投资的金融风险和有效化解企业产能过剩风险，以更好科学地引导企业生态、健康的投资决策和提高投资效率，以及推动资本市场高质量发展等具有重要意义。本书发现也为提高证券监管机构问询监管的精准性和建立分类问询监管机制，强化以交易所问询函为代表的一线监管政策提供经验支持。

关键词：问询监管；过度投资；信息不对称；代理问题；溢出效应

Abstract

The report of 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China（CPC）emphasizes that “it is necessary to transform the functions of the government,deeply streamline administration and delegate power,and reform the methods of supervision,improve the financial supervision system and hold against the bottom line of systemic financial risk”.This policy indicates that financial supervision plays an important role in risk prevention from the perspective of national strategy.Under this background,regulatory agencies will be committed to deepening the new reform of supervision system in the capital market.With the formal implementation of the information disclosure train system of listed firms in 2013,the front-line regulation of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges have changed from “pre-checking”to “post-checking”,and the inquiry system has become an important tool of“post-checking”.Since 2019,China Securities Regulatory Commission（CSRC）has actively launched the “SSE STAR market centered on information disclosure”to promote the high quality development of capital market,which makes the market-oriented supervision mechanism of comment letters become more important in the registration era.Inquiry system,as a mode of non-penalty regulation in the background of China's transition economy,is an important reform about the mode of information disclosure supervision,and is also the implementation of the concept of “deregulating regulation and strengthening supervision”in the capital market.Comment letters is one of the important way to supervise the compliance of accounting policies,the quality of information disclosure,the daily investment behaviors，mergers and acquisitions（M&A）,other financial decision-making behaviors,and even prevent financial risks in the capital market.As an important change of supervision conception in the capital market,the regulatory effect of the inquiry system has been greatly attracted attention by regulators and academics.How is the regulatory effect of the “getting to the root”of China's comment letters? The research on comment letters is initially emerging in China.Most importantly,the identification and governance effect of comment letters on firms investment behavior are still blank.

As the micro-foundation of macro-economic growth,the investment activities are important strategic decisions and the source power of the firms' value creation,which are crucial to the firms'sustainable and healthy development.However,many listed firms are facing the dilemma of inefficient resource allocation and overcapacity in the development of China's transition economy,and the efficiency of investment decision-making is largely affected by information asymmetry and agency problems.The behavior of over-investment is harmful to the firms'value creation,financial risk and the overcapacity,the two stock exchanges'comment letters may focus on those important problems.The comment letters issued by Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges in 2014-2018,about 46% of the listed firms are inquired about “investment behaviors”in the sample of firms'over-investment,and the number of M&A inquiries are the same as the number of “investment characteristics”comment letters in the annual reports.The inquiry policy provides a good research opportunity for further exploring the effectiveness of the exchanges'comment letters mechanism from the perspective of firms over-investment.Therefore,based on the research framework of the motivation and economic consequence of comment letters supervision,this paper investigates the following important research questions:（1）Could the stock exchanges'comment letters effectively identify the behavior of firms over-investment,that is,whether a firm with serious historical over-investment behaviors is more inquiried? Could comment letters pay more attention to the overcapacity firms characterized by the consequence of over-investment behavior?（2）After the identification of over-investment from comment letters,could comment letters effectively restrain the future over-investment behavior? Is this kind of inquiry governance more obvious in comment letters with “investment characteristics”?（3）If comment letters could play a positive governance role in future over-investment behavior,what is the influence mechanism of comment letters?（4）After examining the direct effect of firms over-investment by comment letters supervision,from the perspective of deterrence effect,this paper explores whether the comment letters supervision has a deterrence “spillover effect”in the capital market? We will investigate the spillover effect of comment letters on over-investment behavior related to receive non-comment letters firms in the same industry,the same regions and the corporation groups.

Based on the embedded governance of comment letters system,taking Chinese A-share listed firms and those received annual reports'comment letters or M&A comment letters from 2014 to 2018 as our samples,this paper investigates the decision motivation and economic consequence of comment letters supervision from the perspective of firms over-investment behavior.The empirical results show as follows：

（1）After controlling the financial performance and governance characteristics of the firms,comment letters supervision can effectively identify firms'over-investment behavior.That is,the firms with more historic overinvestment or excess capacity are more likely to be issued by comment letters.This findings show that the stock exchanges pay attention to firms'overinvestment behavior belonged to the policy of national financial risk prevention,and integrate the overcapacity problems of supply-side structural reform into the decision-making of comment letters.

（2）In terms of the economic consequence of comment letters,we find that comment letters supervision has a significant governance effect on firms' future over-investment behavior.Specifically,this governance effect is more pronounced in the sample of comment letters with “investment characteristics”.After employing a difference-in-differences design to control endogenesis,the main results are still held.Futhermore,based on the textual analysis of the annual reports'comment letters,the “investment characteristics”of annual reports'comment letters are divided into the historical investment of annual reports'comment letters and the forward-looking investment of annual reports'comment letters.We find that the historical investment of annual reports'comment letters and forward-looking investment of annual reports'comment letters have all significant governance effect on firms'future over-investment.It shows that those two kinds of regulatory inquiries have incremental governance effect on the firms over-investment,and reflect the influence mechanism of the exchange's precise inquiries by focusing on the firms'historical investment or forward-looking investment.

（3）Information asymmetry and agency problems are two important reasons for leading to firms'over-investment.Based on those theoretical mechanism,we find that the governance effect of comment letters supervision on firms'over-investment behavior is more pronounced in the firms with high information asymmetry（i.e.,earnings information opacity,less analysts following and lower institutional investors shareholding）and serious agency problems.In terms of agency problems,this paper describes the agency problems of over-investment as the measurement of agency costs and the characteristics of agency behaviors.The characteristics of agency behaviors include management overconfidence,excess cash holding and radical debt behavior.For the agency costs,it is found that the governance effect of comment letters supervision on firms'over-investment is more pronounced in the firms with serious twin agency costs.In terms of the characteristics of agency behaviors,we show that the disciplining effect of comment letters supervision on firms'over-investment is more pronounced in the firms with higher management overconfidence,more excess cash holding and higher aggressive debt behavior.

（4）Based on the theory of deterrence effect,comment letters supervision has a deterrent spillover effect in the capital market.The governance effect of comment letters on firms'over-investment can spill over to non-comment-letter-receivers in the same industry and the same corporation groups.But we do not find comment letters supervision play a deterrent spillover effect on firms'over-investment in the same region.

Our findings have important theoretical value and policy implications：

Firstly,this paper provides empirical evidence for the characteristics of China's exchanges inquiry supervision,and contributes to the growing literature on the determinants of comment letters from the perspective of firms over-investment.Based on the new regulatory policy of annual reports'inquiries and M&A inquiries under the reform of registration system in China,this paper not only finds the stock exchanges'comment letters have a screening ability to identify firms'over-investment behavior,but also shows that the stock exchanges pay more attention to the overcapacity firms induced by over-investment.With the transformation and development of economic in China,when the stock exchanges carry out the policy of comment letters,it is more likely to consider the top-level policy design of the state and integrate firms'over-investment behavior belonged to the field of national financial risk prevention and the solving overcapacity issues of supply-side structural reform into the decision-making of comment letters supervision.Through the front-line regulatory,it will better promote the inquiry system to serve the high-quality development of real economy in the capital market.Our findings have an important enlightenment for promoting the supply-side structural reform by combining the information disclosure mechanism of comment letters supervision,such as effectively resolving the information risk of overheated investment and overcapacity risk through inquiry mechanism.

Secondly,this paper provides evidence for the effectiveness of comment letters from the perspective of firms'over-investment under the reform of registration system,and contributes to the growing body of research on the con sequences of comment letters.Previous studies on the regulatory effect of comment letters rarely focused on firms investment behavior.This paper explores the governance mechanism of comment letters supervision from the perspective of firms'over-investment,especially the governance effect of“investment characteristics”comment letters,which enriches the research on inquiry policy in the capital market,and also has an important enlightenment on improving the accuracy of comment letters supervision and constructing a classified inquiry mechanism.

Thirdly,our findings contribute to the growing body of research on the governance path of firms'over-investment behavior.Different from previous studies on the traditional governance of firms'over-investment,From the perspective of non-penalty and preventive regulation of the stock exchanges' comment letters,the inquiry system is introduced into the governance mechanism of firms'inefficient investment behavior under the framework of information asymmetry and agency problems,which enriches the relevant literature of firms investment decision-making.Meanwhile,this paper provides a new empirical for optimizing the information disclosure of firms investment,improving the value effect of firms investment and controlling the financial risk of overheated investment in the capital market.

Fourth,based on the influence mechanism of firms'over investment,from the perspective of “information asymmetry”; and the framework of “agency problems”,including “twin agency costs”,“management overconfidence”,“excess cash holding”and “aggressive debt behavior”.This paper examines the different governance effects of comment letters on firms over-investment.To a certain extent,it can enrich the literature of the information mechanism for firms over-investment,more clearly understand the internal impact mechanism of the stock exchange's inquiry,and provide an important implication for comprehensive interpretation of the comment letters mechanism in firms over-investment behavior.In practice,when the stock exchanges carry out the front-line inquiry regulation,it should focus on the firms with the serious degree of information asymmetry,prominent agency costs,and excess cash holding and aggressive debt behavior（excess debt）.In those scenario,the firms have more motivation or ability to implement high-risk investment behavior,so it should give full attention to the accuracy of front-line inquiry regulation.

Finally,combined with the deterrence theory,we find the spillover effect of comment letters supervision on the governance of firms'over-investment from the same industry and the same corporation groups,which enriches the research on deterrence effect of inquiry policy in the capital market.Meanwhile,this paper has an important implication for the risk management of corporation groups from the perspective of inquiry mechanism.Prior studies find that there is a high level of over-investment and high contagion problems of risk in corporation groups.From the perspective of information embeddedness of comment letters supervision,we examine the spillover effect of comment letters on the over-investment behavior in corporation group members,which is of great significance to prevent the investment risk within the corporation groups,and also provide an important empirical evidence for the external risk management in corporation groups.In addition,from the perspective of limited regulatory resources,the empirical evidence on the spillover effect of comment letters can provide useful reference for regulators in allocating limited regulatory resources and improving the efficiency of comment letters supervision.

In conclusion,based on the research paradigm of new institutional economics,this paper investigates the effectiveness of comment letters supervision from the perspective of firms over-investment under the reform of registration system in China.Our findings expand the research on the non-punitive supervision of inquiry system from two aspects: the influence factor of comment letters and its economic consequence.The conclusions of this paper are of great practical significance to prevent the financial risk of firms'over-investment,resolve the risk of firms'overcapacity through the comment letters supervision,so as to better guide the firm's ecological and healthy investment decision-making and improve investment efficiency,and finally promote the high-quality development of the capital market.This study also provides empirical evidence for improving the accuracy of comment letters supervision,establishing classified comment letters mechanism,and strengthening the front-line supervision policy represented by the stock exchanges' comment letters.

Keywords: Comment Letters Supervision; Over-investment; Information Asymmetry; Agency Problems; Spillover Effect