지난 20년 우리나라 회계보고의 투명성에 어떠한 변화가 있었는가?

This paper investigates how accounting transparency has changed in Korea after the IMF economic crisis. An opaque accounting system often lies behind the big financial crisis. Media and academic research have argued that accounting transparency of Korea is still very poor even after the economic crisis. Many accounting reforms have been made, such as the establishment of KASB, adoption of IFRS, advancing corporate governance structure, and enhancing the auditing system over the 20 years after the IMF crisis. This study examines whether the accounting reforms bring financial reporting quality improvement and they influence capital market uncertainty in Korea. The empirical results reveal that accounting opacity has been significantly reduced in the post-crisis period, resulting in decreasing capital market uncertainty. We use three proxies to measure the transparency in financial reporting; those are discretionary accruals, accruals quality, and small loss ratio. All measures show the significant improvement of accounting opacity over 20 years. Sample observations consist of 9,212 firm-years for the firms listed in Korea Stock Exchange over the period 1999-2018. This study provides meaningful evidence for the improvement of financial reporting quality. It helps academics and practitioners understand the trend of accounting quality improvement in Korea.