An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Environmental Protection Tax on Corporate Earnings Management

Table 1

Variable definition table.

Symbol	Name	Description
Explained variables
DA	Enterprise accrual earnings management	Can control the absolute value of accrual earnings management
Explanatory variables
ET	EPT	Data of pollutant discharge fees shall be collected before 2018, and data of EPT after 2018
Control variables
Sizew	The enterprise scale	The natural log of the total assets of the firm
Levw	Asset-liability ratio	Total liabilities/total assets
Roaw	Return on assets	Net profit/total assets
Growthw	Growth rate of revenue	(Current period operating income-previous period operating income)/previous period operating income
Cfow	Net cash flow from operations	Net cash flow/total assets from operating activities
Agew	Enterprise year	Take the natural log of the difference between the current year and the founding year
Shrcrlw	Shareholding ratio of the largest shareholder	Shareholding ratio of the largest shareholder
Independ	Proportion of independent directors	Number of independent directors/number of directors
Boardw	Board size	Take the natural log of the number of board members
Dual	Dual	Chairman of the board and general manager of the two posts, take 1; otherwise, take 0
State	State property rights	If the actual controller is a state-owned enterprise, the value is 1; otherwise, the value is 0