This study aims to examine the effects of earnings management and audit quality on cost of debt of listed companies in Kazakhstan. The study also investigates the effects of audit quality on earnings management and whether the relationship between earnings management and cost of debt is affected by audit quality in the context of a given emerging economy.,The study sample consists of public companies listed in the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) from 2011 to 2016, and all data were obtained from audited financial statements and annual reports downloaded from the webpage of KASE. The study uses the cross-sectional ordinary least squares technique to test the impact of audit quality and earnings management on cost of debt.,The collected empirical evidence shows that earnings management is negatively related to cost of debt. The findings also indicate that higher audit quality leads to a lower cost of debt. However, the results suggest that audit quality has no impact on earnings management and that the effect of earnings management on cost of debt is not different for the companies audited by the Big Four and for the companies audited by other audit firms.,The findings of the study can be of interest to policy-makers, regulators, investors and practitioners in emerging markets with an institutional environment similar to that of Kazakhstan.,The study throws more light on the impact of earnings management and audit quality on cost of debt in Kazakhstan, representing the Central Asian region. This study also extends the current literature by providing empirical evidence that the relationship between earnings management and cost of debt is not affected by audit quality.

中文翻译：

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盈余管理，审计质量和债务成本：来自中亚经济的证据

本研究旨在检验收益管理和审计质量对哈萨克斯坦上市公司债务成本的影响。该研究还调查了审计质量对盈余管理的影响，以及在给定的新兴经济体背景下，盈余管理与债务成本之间的关系是否受审计质量的影响。研究样本包括哈萨克斯坦股票交易所上市的公司交易所（KASE）从2011年到2016年，所有数据均来自从KASE网页下载的经审计的财务报表和年度报告。本研究采用横截面普通最小二乘法来检验审计质量和盈余管理对债务成本的影响。收集的经验证据表明，盈余管理与债务成本负相关。调查结果还表明，较高的审计质量可以降低债务成本。但是，结果表明，审计质量对盈余管理没有影响，并且盈余管理对债务成本的影响对于四大公司审计的公司和其他审计公司所审计的公司也没有不同。机构环境类似于哈萨克斯坦的新兴市场中的决策者，监管者，投资者和从业人员可能会对这项研究感兴趣。该研究更加关注收益管理和审计质量对哈萨克斯坦债务成本的影响，代表中亚地区。这项研究还通过提供经验证据来扩展当前文献，这些证据表明盈余管理与债务成本之间的关系不受审计质量的影响。