The unintended consequences of targeted poverty alleviation: Evidence from China

This study examines the effect of corporate targeted poverty alleviation (TPA) activities endorsed by Chinese governments on audit outcomes. We find that firms engaging in TPA activities are less likely to receive modified audit opinions (MAOs) relative to those without TPA activities and more TPA investments induce less MAO issuance, documenting an unintentional beneficial consequence of TPA. These findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, including addressing endogeneity issues and ruling out the alternative explanation. Our cross-sectional results show that the negative relation between TPA and MAOs is more significant for firms audited by non-industry specialists and short-tenure auditors, non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), and labor-intensive firms. We perform the mediation analyses and identify three potential channels- improved operating performance, enhanced information disclosure quality, and elevated reputation- through which TPA engagements influence the likelihood of receiving MAOs. Moreover, we find industrial development TPA has a more pronounced effect on audit outcomes due to its positive impact on firms’ business operations. Overall, our research documents an unintended consequence of firms’ TPA initiatives in mitigating audit risk. As a vital facet of policy-oriented CSR, TPA engagements exhibit unique characteristics compared to other CSR perspectives. Given its economic relevance and political features, our study contributes to this stream of research and offers implications for TPA initiatives.