코스닥 상장 바이오기업 연구개발 정보의 가치관련성 분석

This study examines whether the commercial maturity and the incentives underlying capitalization of R&D expenditure affects the value relevance of financial and non-financial R&D information in the KOSDAQ biotech industry. KOSDAQ has served as a major channel for external financing and an incubator for technology intensive SMEs. Over the recent years, KOSDAQ market facilitated the entry of a number of biotech firms by lowering the listing hurdle as well as the intensity of monitoring, which, on the other hand, led to the increased volatility and market risk, associated with failures during clinical trials, management moral hazard, lowered transparency in disclosures, etc. Biotech firms in their early stage of life cycle tend to face greater uncertainty, and are more likely to opt for income-increasing accounting choices. In this study, the focus is given to the differential effect of commercial maturity as well as the discretionary capitalization of development expenditures upon the valuation implication of R&D information disclosed by biotech firms listed in the KOSDAQ market. Using 884 firm-year observations collected from 144 unique firms over the period 2009-2018, we document following major findings derived from a series of contemporaneous, incremental, and differential value relevance analyses. We first show that while R&D expenditures are contemporaneously and incrementally value relevant over the baseline financial reporting model (book value and earnings) regardless of accounting treatment, non-financial R&D information measured by patent counts is not the case. Second, contemporaneous value relevance of financial versus non-financial R&D information depends on commercial maturity, such that emerging (mature) firms exhibit higher value of non-financial (financial) information, demonstrating substitutive relationship between the two types of R&D information. Third, the mapping to value also differs depending on the type of accounting choice, whereby the value relevance of financial (non-financial) information provided by aggressive capitalizers is lower (marginally higher) relative to benchmark firms. We also find that the value-relevance of net asset and income is significantly lower for aggressive capitalizer, demonstrating negative market assessment of income-increasing accounting choice inconsistent with economic substance. Viewed together, our analyses suggest that the values of R&D information is better understood from their interactions with firm characteristics such as commercial maturity and the propensity to engage in aggressive accounting choices, while the financial and non-financial information tend to serve as substitutes of each other. The results suggest the need for investors and other external information users to exercise due caution to the differential valuation implications of various R&D information items pursuant to firm specific characteristics in the KOSDAQ biotech industry context. This study also provides a support for regulatory authority to tighten the disclosure policy applied to biotech industry in the context of the KOSDAQ market.