K-IFRS 도입이 부채조달비용에 미치는 영향

Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS) was adopted in 2011 in order to harmonize with recent trends in international accounting and enhance the usefulness of accounting information. A number of studies have examined the effects of IFRS adoption on the quality of financial reporting, but most of them have focused on the changes in the stock market. This study fills the gap in the literature by analyzing the qualitative impact of K-IFRS adoption on accounting information in the bond market, in which creditors are more conservative and place more value on information that is sensitive to corporate liquidation. In order to assess improvements in the financial reporting quality, this paper examines the changes in the cost of debt—represented by the yield-to-maturity(YTM) and the credit rating(CR) at the issuance of corporate bonds—in the Korean debt market from 2000 to 2014. The results demonstrate that there is a substantial decrease in the interest rate of corporate bonds and an increase in credit ratings, implying a significant reduction in the cost of debt after the implementation of K-IFRS. Propensity score matching and matching based on company size are used to address potential selection concerns, and they lead to the same outcome. This implies that the adoption of K-IFRS has generally improved the information environment of the bond market, which is consistent with findings of earlier research conducted in different countries. This study is limited in several ways. First, it fails to take into account the fact that company managers could intentionally distort the reported earnings in order to reduce the cost of debt. Second, the regression method is subject to endogeneity bias caused by the consolidated financial information. Further research is needed to account for these issues.