이익보고시차 및 감사시차에 따른 발생액 이상 현상

This study examines the association between accrual anomaly and earnings report lag and audit report lag. Timely disclosure of earnings directly affects capital market efficiency and, therefore, has been of a great concern by investors and regulators. In an effort to improve the information content of earnings report, the U.S. SEC has adopted a rule for accelerated 10K filings requiring firms that satisfy a certain condition file their 10Ks with the SEC within 60 days. Since Sloan (1986) reported the accrual anomaly phenomenon of earnings, several studies have examined potential reasons for the anomaly. Sloan(1996) argues that accruals lack persistence relative to cash flows and investors fixate their decisions on accrual-based accounting earnings. He suggests that difficulty in interpreting accounting estimation, complex cost allocation, and accounting choices causes the anomaly. Collins and Hribar(2000) report that the accrual anomaly phenomenon also exists in quarterly earnings and this anomaly is distinct from the post-earings announcement drift. Dopuch at al.(2005) find that the accrual anomaly phenomenon exists only with firms experiencing positive net income. Xie(2001) extends Sloan(1996) showing that the accrual anomaly is primary driven by discretionary accruals. While prior studies reported the anomaly phenomena with several components of earnings, potential reasons for the anomaly are not well understood. Managers tend to disclose good news earlier and bad news later. A potential reason for disclosing bad news later would be to avoid a rapid decline in stock price. When the disclosure of earnings is delayed, the quality of earnings information at the disclosure date would be lower since investors pursue alternative sources of earnings information from other than corporate disclosures. The information contents of earnings would, therefore, be different between firms disclosing their earnings early and those disclosing earnings late. This difference in information contents would result in a greater anomaly. Trueman(1990) also suggests that managers are more likely to manage earnings as their report lags lengthen, which lowers the quality of reported earnings. Regardless of earnings quality pertaining to report lags, investors may not be able to understand the implications of current earnings on future earnings(Thomas and Zhang 2002; Lev and Thiagaraian 1993). This misunderstanding may result in over-reactions to accruals of firms with different lengths of report lags. Therefore, we hypothesize that firms with longer report lags are more likely to experience greater accrual anomaly than others. Earnings report lag is the period between the fiscal year end and the earnings disclosure date and composes of two time periods; a period from the fiscal year end date to audit report date and the period from audit report date to earnings disclosure date. Spending more time in audit procedures may imply a greater auditors' effort, which results in higher audit quality and more reliable accounting earnings. Higher accounting quality improves the persistence of earnings and reduces accrual anomaly. On the other hand, longer audit report lags may not necessarily suggest auditor spending more time for audit procedures. Instead, this may simply suggest that auditors need to spend more time for judgements in determining and/or negotiating the final numbers on the statements with their client managers. Consistent with this view, Na and Choi(2004) find that there is a positive association between audit report lag and accruals and conclude that auditors extend their audit since audit risk associated with accruals is high. Most prior studies also find that audit report lags are greater when audit risk as a result of complex business transactions and high bankruptcy risk is high. When business transactions are complex and bankruptcy risk is high, investors are more likely to experience difficulty in interpreting accounting accruals and, therefore, accrual anomaly is expected to be greater. We, therefore, hypothesize that firms with longer audit report lags are more likely to experience greater accrual anomaly than others. Using sample period from 1999 through 2005, we examine whether accrual anomaly varies depending on the report lags. In particular, we utilize Mishkin(1983) test in detecting accrual anomaly. The results of our analyses show that accrual anomaly phenomenon is observed in Korean capital market consistent with findings of prior oversee's studies. Second, the results of our analyses show that for firms with relatively short earnings report lags, the accrual anomaly phenomenon is not observed. On the other hand, firms with longer earnings report lags experience the accrual anomaly phenomenon. Third, firms with longer audit report lags also experience the accrual anomaly similar to earnings report lags. Additional analyses reveal that accrual anomaly phenomenon becomes prevalent when earnings report and audit report lags lengthen. In particular, when audit report lags are larger, the accrual anomaly phenomenon is clearly observed in both discretionary and non-discretionary accruals. These results suggest that for firms with longer earnings and audit report lags, the quality of accruals are low and, therefore, investors are seemed not to properly evaluate the underlying meanings of accruals on firm value. In addition, regardless of the length of lags investors may also over-react to accruals while, in fact, the quality of accruals remains unchanged. The results with both earnings report lags and audit report lags suggest that the lags may deteriorate the efficiency of capital market and, therefore, further analyses on potential reasons for the anomaly of earnings need to be conducted.