가결산 순이익의 과대공시와 기업특성 및 시장의 사후 감시기능 = Firm Characteristics and the Market Monitoring of Optimistic Preliminary Earnings Announcements

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study examines characteristics of firms that announce optimistic preliminary earnings announcements. Many firms voluntarily announce preliminary earnings information before actual earnings are finalized at the general shareholder meeting. Prior research suggests that such preliminary earnings are optimistic compared to actual earnings. Preliminary earnings announcements are voluntary disclosures. Thus, it is possible that management has incentives to overestimate the forthcoming earnings if there is no penalty for the overestimation. Also, preliminary earnings announcements are usually made before the actual earnings are finalized. Hence, preliminary earnings announcements can turn out to be optimistic if items recognized through adjusting entries in the closing process affect actual earnings. The study investigates firm characteristics that are systematically associated with optimistic preliminary earnings announcements. Furthermore, the study examines whether the stock market plays a monitoring role against optimistic preliminary earnings announcements. Specifically, it is hypothesized that optimistic preliminary earnings announcements are negatively associated with firm size, equity holdings by foreign and domestic institutional investors, and firm performance. Furthermore, it is expected that optimistic preliminary earnings announcements are positively related to items recognized through year-end adjusting entries, such as bad debt expenses and losses or gains from the equity method. Whether preliminary earnings information is overestimated is proved when actual earnings are disclosed later. Thus, if the market penalizes preliminary earnings information that turns out to be overestimated, the market reaction to the actual earnings announcement will be negative. We test whether the market penalizes preliminary earnings information that turns out to be overestimated by examining market reactions to actual earnings announcements. As expected, we find that firms tend to overestimate preliminary earnings information as they are small, perform poorly, and have relatively large items recognized through year-end adjusting entries. The results also reveal that firms are likely to avoid optimistic preliminary earnings announcements as equity ownership held by foreign investors is high. There was no penalty for optimistic preliminary earnings announcements before 1998. However, there is evidence, although it is weak, the markets penalize firms when the preliminary earnings information turns out overestimated. Furthermore, the penalization of the market increases with foreign equity ownership in the firm.