수익비용대응이 회계정보의 증분 가치관련성과 상대적 주가배수에 미치는 영향

This study examines the effect of matching principle on incremental value relevance and relative pricing multiples (i) between earnings and equity book value or (ii) between accruals and operating cash flows. Prior studies document that the usefulness of balance sheet information has increased over time while the usefulness of income statement information has decreased over time. The important determinants that contribute to the deterioration of usefulness of income statement information could be categorized into (i) external-accounting factors and (ii) internal- accounting factors. External-accounting factors are mainly related to changes in economic environments or industry structure such as increasing service industries or intangible expenditures. On the other hand, internal-accounting factors include a shift from income statement to balance sheet in measuring accounting earnings. The decline in the usefulness of income statement information is manifested by a decreasing trend of the degree of matching between revenues and expenses, an increasing trend of earnings volatility and a decreasing trend of earnings persistence over time. Given that inadequate matching between revenues and expenses causes earnings to be more volatile or less persistent, we conjecture that proper matching will enhance earnings quality and sustainability as well. Also, enhanced quality of earnings and sustainability resulting from proper matching will lead to higher value relevance and larger pricing multiples on earnings (accruals) than those on equity book value (operating cash flows) in the Ohlson's (1995) residual income model. In this study, we focus improper matching as one of the most important causes for deterioration of the usefulness of income statement information. Using Dichev and Tang's (2008) model, we measure the degree of matching as standardized regression coefficient of the current-period expenses on current-period revenues in the presence of past-period and next-period expenses. And the relative importance of accounting information is examined by comparing incremental adjusted R2 and relative pricing multiples on (i) earnings and equity book value or (ii) accruals and operating cash flows in the Ohlson's (1995) residual income model. Empirical results in this study generally support our expectations and are summarized as follows. First, the mismatching between revenues and expenses has been more serious over time and overall value relevance of accounting information has improved over time. In particular, equity book value and operating cash flows have become more value relevant over time while earnings and accruals do not show any distinctive patterns of value relevance over time. Second, as hypothesized, proper-matching firms have significantly larger incremental adjusted R2 and pricing multiples on earnings (or accruals) relative to equity book value (or operating cash flows) than less proper-matching firms. This suggests that market participants respond favorably to the sustainability of firms with more proper-matching. Prior studies have investigated the value relevance of accounting information mainly focusing on external-accounting factors such as changes in economic environment or industry structure. In contrast, this study attempts to identify sources of the deterioration of the usefulness of accounting information from an internal-accounting factor, degree of matching, based on the contemporaneous matching between revenues and expenses. Moreover, to the extent that the International Financial Reporting Standards emphasizes fair-value measurement, it is not surprising to expect that the matching keeps losing its importance. As a result, earnings play only a limited role in various decision-making contexts.