公司上市櫃前盈餘管理

Abstract

公司上市櫃前是否進行盈餘管理一直是會計研究的熱門議題，台灣的相關文獻中有支持盈餘管理假說者，亦有支持無盈餘管理假說者。本研究之樣本包含西元1992年至2006年在台灣證券交易所新上市之公司(499家)以及在櫃臺買賣中心新上櫃之公司(744家)。本研究採用橫斷面modified Jones model估計裁量性流動應計項目 (discretionary current accruals)，作為盈餘管理之代理變數。Ball and Shivakumar (2007) 提到公司IPO當年底之裁量性流動應計項目存在一些潛在的問題，造成如果採用IPO當年底之裁量性流動應計項目去判斷公司是否進行盈餘管理會產生偏差。本文除了檢視公司上市櫃當年底之裁量性流動應計項目外，更深入檢視組成流動應計項目之變數個別變動。本研究認為公司上市櫃當年底之裁量性流動應計項目乃取決於公司對於營運資本配置之決定，並認為以公司上市櫃前兩年之裁量性流動應計項目作為公司上市櫃前是否進行盈餘管理的代理變數更為合適。實證結果顯示公司上市櫃前並未進行盈餘管理，並且在上市櫃前一年以及前二年比其他已經上市櫃公司更為條件保守。

This study examines whether newly listed firms engage in earnings management before their listing. The sample includes 499 newly listed firms in the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) market and 744 newly listed firms in the GreTai Securities (GTS) market between 1992 and 2006. This paper uses the cross-sectional modified Jones model to estimate discretionary current accruals as the proxy for earnings management behavior. The study illustrates some potential biases related to the discretionary current accruals in the event year mentioned by Ball and Shivakumar (2007) and examines the fluctuations of individual working capital components. The discretionary current accruals in the event year are influenced by firms’ decision to deploy their working capital level, and this paper assumes the discretionary current accruals in the event year -1 and -2 are more suitable to test if newly listed firms manipulate their earnings. The empirical results are consistent with that newly listed firms do not engage in earnings management before their listing and even report more conditionally conservatively in event year -1 and -2.