盈余重述归因分析——资产负债表膨胀的角度

Attribution of Earnings Restatements: From the Perspective of Balance Sheet Bloat

针对国内外学者对财务重述原因的争议,在借鉴已有研究成果的基础上,本文从资产负债表膨胀的角度对盈余重述进行了归因分析。以高报盈余的重述公司为对象,利用多元回归分析等方法实证后发现,与非重述公司相比,高报盈余的重述公司在财务报告发生错误的年度资产负债表膨胀水平较高,说明公司被重述期正向调整了盈余,重述归因于公司之前年度有意的盈余管理;违规公司被重述期期初的资产负债表膨胀度显著高于非违规公司,证明公司违规主要是由于会计准则弹性范围内调整盈余的机会受限。

Earnings restatements have been filed at record levels in the past few years, which undermine the credibility of accounting information and influence the efficiency of capital markets. How- ever, a significant debate remains regarding the underlying cause of restatements. Most scholars think that earnings restatements should be blamed on error, or misunderstanding of accounting standards, other researchers persist that restatements are due to intentional earnings management. This paper studies the reasons of earnings restatements from the perspective of balance sheet bloat drawing on existing research to solve the dispute of scholars. With regression analysis, we find out that overstated companies have higher balance sheet bloat compared with no-restatement companies in restated years, indicating that overstated companies have adjusted upward earnings. There is no significant difference in net operating assets between core restatements companies and no-core restatements companies. The beginning balance sheet bloat of irregular restatements companies is higher than that of the regular companies in restated years, which means that the lim- ited opportunities to adjust earnings within accounting standards flexibility is the main reason of restating companies linked to ac- counting violations. In order to provide additional assurance that balance sheet bloat measure is consistent with earnings manage- ment behavior, we also analyze discretionary accruals in restated years. Robustness test results indicate that overstated companies mainly adjust upwards earnings via accruals. This proves that earnings restatements should be attributed to intentional earnings manipulation. Existing research on earnings management focuses on income statements, and this paper shifts it to the balance sheet, which is another contribution of the paper. Our findings indicate that the balance sheet contains information above and beyond that contained in the income statement that is useful for evaluating the financial prospects of the firms. Therefore, policymakers should reduce the flexible space of accounting choice and strengthen the supervision of restatements to improve the quality of accounting information.