應計品質與資金成本之關聯性

Abstract

近期的理論性研究指出（e.g., Easley and O’Hara, 2004; O’Hara, 2003; Leuz and Verrecchia, 2004），資訊風險為一項無法分散的系統性風險，在資產評價的過程應當納入考量。資訊風險，意指與投資人評價決策有關的、特定公司的資訊，而該資訊有可能是品質不佳的風險。本文以應計品質，做為與盈餘數字有關的資訊風險的代理變數，探討資本市場參與者對應計品質所造成的資訊風險是否重視，及隱藏於財務報表中的應計品質資訊，是否能被投資人擷取與解讀，將其實際應用於評價過程當中，並更進一步探討不同的資訊風險來源—裁量性應計品質與非裁量性應計品質，是否對投資人的評價過程會有不同的影響效果。 本文參照Francis et al.（2005）之研究方法，進行台灣市場之實證。以台灣上市上櫃資料測試發現，應計品質與負債及權益資金成本間，的確存在關聯，但研究結果不盡與理論之預期相同。在權益資金成本方面，應計品質較佳的公司，投資人要求的風險貼水愈低，企業得以較低的資金成本取得所需的外部資金，但在負債資金成本方面，應計品質較佳的公司則必需承擔較高的資金成本，對此本文提出的可能解釋為在負債方面可能仍存有遺漏變數（例如擔保品的相關變數等）的問題，及台灣債券市場不夠活絡所致。另外，本文之測試也發現，在權益資金成本方面，裁量性應計品質與非裁量性應計品質對資金成本會有不同的影響效果，裁量性應計品質的資金成本影響效果小於非裁量性應計品質的資金成本影響效果；但在負債資金成本方面，研究結果無法獲得一致性的結論。 本文的實證結果顯示，權益資本市場的確將本文之應計品質指標所代表的應計品質，納入評價過程及投資決策的考量中。

Recent theoretical research (e.g., Easley and O’Hara, 2004; O’Hara, 2003; Leuz and Verrecchia, 2004) shows that information risk is a non-diversifiable risk factor and should be priced by investors. This study identify accruals quality as the measure of information risk associated with earnings to explore whether capital market or investors price accruals quality, and whether different sources of information risk – innate accruals quality and discretionary accruals quality – will have distinct cost of capital effects. This paper refers to the method mentioned in Francis et al. (2005) to carry out a research in Taiwan’s capital market. This paper provides large sample evidences that reporting quality as captured by accruals quality is salient for investors. The empirical results show the significance relation between accruals quality and cost of capital. Higher accrual quality (indicates lower information risk) is associated with lower required return, but contrary to expectation, higher accrual quality is associated with larger cost of debt. The possible reasons are that this study omits one or more relevant variables that should be included in the model for a variety reasons and that debt market is inactive. Additionally, in equity market, the empirical results also indicate significantly smaller pricing effects of discretionary accruals quality, relative to innate accruals quality, but in debt market, there is a discrepancy in the empirical results. This result indicates that equity market dose take the information of accruals quality revealed by financial statement into consideration.