증권집단소송법과 회계개혁법안의 도입이 이익조정수준에 미친 영향에 대한 연구

This study examines the changes in accrual-based and real earnings management after the adoption of various accounting reform acts, such as Korean Class-Action Securities Litigation Act and Korean version of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (K-SOX) which became effective from the year 2004. Before the related regulations passed the National Assembly at the end of the year 2003, it had been recognized that earnings management was prevalent in most Korean firms. Due to the crisis from Enron and Worldcom in the year 2000, the needs of the strict regulation and accounting standards are increased world-widely. Therefore, during December 2003, Korean Class-Action Securities Litigation Act was enacted and K-SOX passed the Korean National Assembly. This study also investigates the association between accrual-based earnings management and earnings management through real operating activities. To measure the level of accrual-based earnings management, performance-matched discretionary accrual from modified Jones Model(1995) is used. For the analysis of the changes in real earnings management, I follow the methodology suggested by Roychowdhury(2006) and Cohen et al.(2008). According to the Roychowdhury(2006), real operational activities are classified to sales, production and spending discretionary expense activity. Real earnings management metrics such as abnormal cash flow from operation, abnormal production costs and abnormal sales and administrative expenses in those activities are measured and used in the analysis. Empirical results using 2,498 firm-year observations collected during the periods from the year 2000 to the year 2006 reveal that the level of accrual-based earnings management has decreased but income-increasing real earnings management in operating activities has increased significantly. Analyzing the changes in earnings management in two aspects after the adoption of accounting reform acts shows that the decrease in the level of accrual-based earning management and the increase in income-increasing real earnings management are associated each other closely. Further analysis showed that income-increasing accrual-based earnings management was significantly decreased. Consequently, it's not clear if overall the level of earnings management decreased after the passage of the Acts. These findings provide useful information and implication to regulators, academics and investors. The results clearly reveal the unintended consequences of the Acts, i.e., the increase in the level of real earnings management. Real activities manipulation could have more serious consequence than accrual-based manipulation. Therefore the regulators should be careful in adopting new rules, considering these elusive responses of firms in order to manage earnings consistently.