관계금융이 부채계약과 관련된 이익조정 유인에 미치는 영향

This study intends to confirm the relation between debt ratio and earings management, and tries to find out how the related financial factor, such as concerning finance which means the level of dependence of main creditor bank, affects on firm’s earnings management. The role of concerning finance in earnings management has been omitted in the prior research on the relationship between debt covenants and earnings management. In this study, we tried to verify the effect of the total debt ratio on earnings management, and tried to investigate the role of concerning finance measured by the level of dependence of main creditor bank in the debt contract. We measured the level of earnings management with the modified Jones Model (1991), and analyzed regression models with control variables known by prior studies. We empirically compared, and analyzed 2,159 listed firm-years with the fiscal year-end in December but non-banking industry over 2003-2010. Results are summarized as following. First of all, the firms with high debt ratio have a tendency to make their profit adjustments downward. Second, the level of dependence of main creditor bank has positive effect on the relation between total debt ratio and the profit adjustment. The level of dependence of main creditor bank which is a company’s financial characteristic has an important role as an inducer of firms’s earnings management.