財報不實期間與後續之公司投資決策探討

Abstract

投資決策是公司創造價值的主要活動，財務報表是公司決策制訂的重要參考資訊，財報不實表達 (misreporting) 可能誤導決策者致使公司投資決策扭曲。財報重編是財報不實表達的「事後」確認，本文以1996年至2005年間重編財務報表之146家公司為研究對象，探討公司財報不實表達期間與後續之投資決策及其影響因素。 本文以投資無效率及過度投資、投資不足為投資決策之代理變數，採用單變量與OLS迴歸模型分析下述研究議題。首先，財報不實表達期間，公司決策者可能為配合盈餘操縱誘因與目的之達成，是否致使投資決策呈現過度投資之無效率？且公司財報不實之嚴重程度與過度投資之多寡是否有關？其次，財報不實表達期間結束後，公司因融資受限情況趨於嚴重，投資決策是否呈現投資不足之無效率？且公司財報不實之嚴重程度與投資不足之多寡是否有關？最後，財報不實表達期間結束後，公司財報品質愈高是否有助減緩無效率投資。 實證結果發現，公司於財報不實表達期間之投資決策，未顯著呈現過度投資之無效率；財報不實表達期間結束後，公司投資呈現投資不足之無效率。公司財報不實之嚴重程度，與財報不實期間與後續之投資無效率有關。財報不實係違反收益認列原則 (REV)、高估盈餘 (OVERSTATE)，或不實盈餘占總資產比率愈高(MAGNITUDE)，公司於財報不實表達期間之投資決策，呈現較多之無效率過度投資。財報不實表達期間結束後，多次重編公司 (MULTI) 投資不足之程度愈大；然而，高估盈餘 (OVERSTATE) 公司可能因融資受限情況較不嚴重，其過度投資無效率之程度愈高，與Bar-Gill and Bebchuk (2003) 的預期相符。最後，財報不實表達期間結束後，較高品質之財報僅有助減緩過度投資之情況，卻未顯著改善投資不足之無效率。

Corporate investment decisions are very crucial to firms’ value creation. Financial statements are important and useful for external or internal users’ decision making. It has possibility that misreporting may promote distortion on firm’s investment decisions. Restatement indicates that firm’s prior financial statements was misstated and signal management intention of manipulating earnings or firm’s turning down situation. I employ 146 restatement firms, which restate their financial statements during the period from 1996 to 2005 and accumulate total 190 misreported years, as proxy of misreporting sample. This study attempts to investigate corporate investment decisions during and post misreporting periods. This study adopts inefficient investment and over- or under-investment as the proxy of investment decisions. Univariate analysis and OLS regression model are used to explore the following research issues. First, whether corporate investment exhibits over-investment inefficiency during misreporting period and misreporting firms may overinvest more if the misstatement is more severe. Second, whether corporate investment exhibits under-investment inefficiency post misreporting period and the extent of under-investment increase with misreporting severity. Third, whether the higher-quality financial reporting, measured by accrual estimation error estimated by Dechow and Dichev’ (2002) model augmented by McNichols (2002), in the post misreporting period can have effect on the mitigation of inefficient investment. The empirical results show that misreporting firms don’t reveal significant inefficient investment during misreporting period; however, misreporting firms with more severe misreporting (REV, MAGNITUDE and OVERSTATE) tend to invest inefficiently and over-invest more. In the post misreporting period, misreporting firms under-invest significantly and multiple restating firms (MULTI) reveals more under-investment; whereas, misreporting firms overstating their earnings (OVERSTATE) incline to overinvest more like the prediction of Bar-Gill and Bebchuk (2003). Furthermore, higher-quality financial reporting can only mitigate over-investment while cannot help alleviate under-investment in the post misreporting period.