호재의 조기공시, 악재의 지연공시 행태와 이에 대한 주가 반응

The bad news tends to be announced late whereas good news tends to be announced early. Delayed disclosure of bad news will cause damage to investors. The hiding a bad news is a typical agency problems caused by a conflict of interests between shareholders and managements. The reason of delaying bad news is that the benefits are larger than their costs. The benefits of delaying the bad news are various. For example, managers can complete a contracts more favorable terms just before the disclosure of bad news. Managers can prepare the criticism on poor performance by delaying the bad news and make time for weaving a plan to reverse it. According to the studies on the earnings announcements timing, it is well known that good news are disclosed quicker than due date, whereas bad news are disclosed later than due date (Kross 1982; Givoly and Palmon 1982; Chambers and Penman 1984; Kross and Schroeder 1984; Damodaran 1989; Begley and Fischer 1998; Bagnoli et al. 2002; Sengupth 2004; Haw et al. 2006; Cullinan et al. 2012). The behavior of good news early and bad news late disclosure seems to be influenced by a litigation environment. Begley and Fisher(1998) investigated whether a good news early, bad news late hypothesis is effective in spite of increased litigation risk in 1980s. They reported that the behavior of good news early, bad news late disclosure is still effective in spite of increased costs of delaying a bad news in 1980s. The benefits of delaying bad news in Korean firms seem to be different from developed countries. Korean firms are insensitive to litigation risk. For example, the directors and officers insurance purchase rate in Korea is substantially lower than that of developed countries. Korean managers overestimate benefits of delaying bad news. An anecdotal examples of delaying the bad news are well known. Some firms announce the bad news at time after market closed or in friday afternoon. The good news early, bad news late hypothesis have not investigated in Korea. The behavior of good news early, bad news late disclosure may also exist in Korea. Though it's importance in view of the market size of Korea, this topic didn't attract attention of researchers. This study analyzes whether there exists a behavior of the good news early, bad news late disclosure in the Korean capital market. We could found an evidence that the pattern of the good news early, bad news late exists in Korea. We also investigate the stock return behavior during earnings announcement period. According to the results, there exists a significant a relation between timeliness and abnormal return during earnings announcement period. The results of this study that companies choose the timing of earnings announcements may attract attention of participants of the capital market in trading activities. This topic will also provide implications to related practitioners and policy makers who are interested in the timely disclosure of corporate in order to promote market efficiency.