회계정보가 위험의 배분과 생산활동으로 창출되는 현금흐름에 미치는 영향: 교육적인 관점

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hirshleifer(1971) showed that information hinders rather than facilitates allocation of capital. Diamond(1985) accepted the proposition that accounting is a socially harmful activity. He instead showed that corporate disclosure saves investors information search costs. Kanodia and Lee(1998) showed that in a production economy with information asymmetry, corporate disclosure contributes to the improvement in the cash flows from investment project itself. We now accurately understand how accounting is beneficial and detrimental. Introduction of information to capital markets induces the agents to take actions. On the one hand, the responses hinder allocation of risks among agents. Such destruction occurs always. On the other hand, the responses may increase the cash flows of the investment project itself, decrease some transaction costs, or have no impact on cash flows. When the beneficial effects outweigh the detrimental effects, information has social value. But these insights are buried deep beneath heavy economic and mathematical machinery. It is plainly impossible for undergraduate students to comprehend the insights of the papers through such heavy machinery. The objective of this paper is to present the essential ideas in plain language, which undergraduate students can understand.