수시공시수준이 재무분석가수와 회사채평가등급에 미치는 영향 = Effects of Timely Disclosure Level on the Number of Financial Analysts and Bond Ratings

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper examines the effects of timely disclosure level on information asymmetry and cost of debt capital. We conjecture that high level of timely disclosure decreases information asymmetry between managers and market participants, thereby reducing cost of debt capital. Timely disclosure level is difficult to measure because it is not directly observable. First of all, we classify timely disclosure level into timely voluntary disclosure level and timely mandatory disclosure level. We define timely voluntary disclosure level as the number of timely voluntary disclosure and timely mandatory disclosure level as an indicator variable for unfaithful disclosure. In addition, because financial analysts have traditionally played vital roles as information intermediaries in the financial markets, we regard the number of financial analysts as a reflection of information asymmetry between managers and market participants. And then we measure cost of debt capital as a dependent variable by bond ratings which are assigned by Korea Investors Service (KIS), one of the Korean major bond-rating firms. KIS assigns bond ratings of Korean firms on a scale of twenty grades from AAA to D. Following Ahmed et al.(2002), we code these ratings such that AAA corresponds with 1 (the best rating) and D (the worst rating) with 20 to facilitate our empirical analyses. To investigate whether the timely disclosure level such as timely voluntary disclosure level and timely mandatory disclosure level decreases information asymmetry between managers and market participants, thereby cutting cost of debt capital, we set and estimate regression models. We use 534 non-financing firm-year data concerning Korean listed companies for the period 2002-2012. Firms in the banking and finance industry were excluded from this study in order to enhance the comparability of the data, because the accounting principles and general attributes of financial firm data differ substantially from those of non-finance firm data. We selected 267 non-finance firms designated as unfaithful disclosure firms, matched with those not selected as unfaithful disclosure firms. The matching criteria used in this paper include year, industry and firm size. Main findings of this study are as follows. First, while the indicator variable for unfaithful disclosure has a significantly negative influence on the number of financial analysts, the number of timely voluntary disclosure has a significant positive impact on the number of financial analysts. These results indicate that high level of timely disclosure decreases information asymmetry between managers and market participants, Second, whereas the dummy variable for unfaithful disclosure has a positive impact on cost of debt capital, the number of timely voluntary disclosure has a negative influence on cost of debt capital. These findings demonstrate that high level of timely disclosure reduces the cost of debt capital. Third, the number of financial analysts plays an important role in the association between timely disclosure level and cost of debt capital. These results show that high level of timely disclosure decreases cost of debt capital by reducing information asymmetry between managers and bond investors. Fourth, the effect of the number of timely voluntary disclosure on the number of financial analysts is greater than the effect of the unfaithful disclosure on that. In addition, the effect of the number of timely voluntary disclosure on cost of debt capital is greater than the effect of the unfaithful disclosure on that. These findings obviously certify that financial analysts and debt investors can consider timely voluntary disclosure more important than timely mandatory disclosure. In sum, empirical findings of this study indicate that high level of timely disclosure decreases information asymmetry between managers and bond investors, thereby shortens cost of debt capital. Financial analysts and debt investors, moreover, can consider timely voluntary disclosure more important than timely mandatory disclosure. Our paper makes two contributions. First, consistent with theories that demonstrate a role of information risk in asset pricing, we show that firms with low level of timely disclosure have higher costs of debt capital than do firms with high level. Second, empirical results of our paper also suggest several important implications for regulatory bodies on disclosure policy and regulation.