This paper examines whether there is a difference in the value of voluntarily assured financial statements of private firms, depending on the availability of other information for the users of the statements. By using a within-firm estimator that completely controls for firm fixed effects, we find that the loan interest rate for private firms with voluntarily assured financial statements is lower when the firms have longer relationships with their banks. This finding suggests that the value of assured financial statements differs among the same type of users (banks), and is larger for those that accumulate soft information through long-term lending relationships. We also find that this larger value is not present when the tenure of the auditor with the client is very long.

本文研究了私营公司自愿担保财务报表的价值是否存在差异，这取决于报表用户是否可以获得其他信息。通过使用完全控制公司固定效应的公司内部估计器，我们发现，当公司与银行的关系较长时，拥有自愿保证财务报表的私营公司的贷款利率较低。这一发现表明，受保财务报表的价值在同一类型的用户（银行）之间存在差异，对于那些通过长期借贷关系积累软信息的用户而言，其价值更大。我们还发现，当审计师与客户的任期很长时，这个更大的价值是不存在的。