Does the audit quality affect the financing efficiency of photovoltaic enterprises? Evidence from listed companies in China

ABSTRACT The Photovoltaic industry promotes the transformation of China’s energy structure to green and low-carbon, which is of great significance to achieve the goal of “Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality.” At present, the industry is mainly faced with problems such as the drastic reduction of government subsidies and the difficulty of financing. From the perspective of independent auditing, our paper takes 54 A-share listed photovoltaic companies in China from 2011 to 2020 as the research object to study the impact of audit quality on financing efficiency, and the role of agency costs in the relationship between audit quality and financing efficiency.The results show that audit quality is positively related to financing efficiency. For every 1% increase in audit quality, the financing efficiency will increase by 13%. In addition, agency cost plays an intermediary role between audit quality and financing efficiency. For every 1% increase in audit quality, agency cost can be reduced by 34% and financing efficiency can be increased by 25%.