COVID-19와 회계정보의 비교가능성 = COVID-19 Pandemic and Financial Statement Comparability

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The COVID-19 b rought a n unp recedented h ealth crisis a ll o ver the world. B esides t he damage on health, it has also triggered enormous stock price movement. Moreover, stock return volatility has been large. In this study, we examine whether Covid-19 pandemic affects the financial statement comparability.
Based on prior researches, we propose two competing predictions. On the one hand, prior studies document that increased use of opportunistic earnings management that occurred during the financial crisis d amaged t he quality of r ep orted earning. In addition, managers who f ail to d evise action p lans f ast to navigate through such a challenging business environment are more likely to reduce comparability to avoid highlighting their low performance. Therefore, it is likely that COVID-19 lowers comparability.
On the other hand, we can expect comparability may be high during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the face of liquidity risk arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, managers can increase comparability in order to reduce cost of capital. Because COVID-19 has brought an unparallel level of uncertainty and volatility to t he c ap ital market, e xternal investors are also likely to d emand comp arable a ccounting i nformation t o reduce their uncertainty about and pricing of firm’s risk.
To empirically test the above predictions, we divide our sample into two period, firstly, pre-COVID(first and second quarter of 2019) and COVID-19 pandemic(first and second quarter of 2020) period. We find that during COVID-19 pandemic, financial statement comparability declined significantly.
Additionally, compared to pre-COVID-19, the comparability of firms in the pharmaceutical and bio industries during the COVID-19 pandemic is higher than that of other companies. It is estimated that the pharmaceutical and bio industries produce and provide comparable information to raise large amount of funds needed for vaccine development at a lower cost. Also, compared to pre-COVID-19, firms with overconfident CEOs during the COVID-19 pandemic exhibit high financial statement comparability. We can interpret that a overconfident CEOs who guide and reassure employees during the COVID-19 pandemic are more likely to produce comparable information to accurately communicate their performance to outsiders.
Prior studies primarily focus on the role of accounting standard in determine comparability. Despite the essential role played by accounting standards, several studies argue that accounting standards cannot fully determine comparability. Therefore, prior research began to focus on other factors beyond accounting standard such as auditors, enforcement mechanisms and institutional environment. Along this line, we confirm that COVID-19 p andemic is a f actor a ffecting comp arability. To t he b est of our knowledge, our study is the first to examine the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on comparability. In addition, the findings of this study suggest that users need to make more efforts to analyze financial statements in making decisions in the COVID period compared to the pre-COVID period.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 연구는 COVID-19 팬데믹 전후에 회계정보의 비교가능성(이하 비교가능성)에 차이가 있는지를분석하였다. 팬데믹 상황에서 경영자들은 낮은 경영 성과를 숨기기 위해 이익 상향 조정을 수행할 가능성이 있다. 그리고 경영자 자신의 career concern으로 낮은 성과를 덜 부각하기 위해 비교가능성을 낮출 수 있다. 또한 팬데믹에 대한 경영자의 인식 차이 및 팬데믹으로 인한 재무제표 항목에 대한추정의 어려움으로 비교가능성이 낮아질 수 있다. 이와 반대로 팬데믹 상황에서 비교가능성이 높을 수도 있다. COVID-19로 인한 유동성 위기 속에서 경영자는 보다 용이하게 자본을 조달하기 위해 비교가능성을 높일 수 있다. 그리고 미래 성과에 대한 불확실성이 높기 때문에 투자자는 더욱 비교가능한회계정보를 요구할 가능성이 높고 이러한 높은 수요에 따라 경영자는 비교가능성이 높은 회계정보를제공할 수 있다.
실증분석 결과 COVID-19 이전 기간(2019년 1분기와 2분기)에 비해 팬데믹 기간(2020년 1분기와2분기)에 비교가능성이 유의하게 낮은 것으로 나타났다. 한편 COVID-19 팬데믹이 비교가능성에 미치는 영향은 경영자 또는 산업의 특성에 따라 다르게 나타났다. 제약･바이오산업에 속한 기업은 타산업에 속한 기업에 비해 팬데믹 기간에 비교가능성이 높게 나타났다. 이는 제약 및 바이오산업은 백신 개발에 필요한 자금을 낮은 비용으로 조달하기 위해 비교가능한 정보를 생산하여 제공하는 것으로추정된다. 또한 과잉확신성향을 가진 경영자에 의해 운영되는 기업은 그렇지 않은 기업에 비해 팬데믹기간에 비교가능성이 높았다. 이는 과잉확신성향을 가진 경영자의 경우 팬데믹 속에서 자신들의 리더십과 위기 대처능력을 정보이용자에게 전달하여 적절한 보상 및 평가를 받기 위해 비교가능성이 높은재무제표를 제공하는 것으로 해석된다.
본 연구의 결과는 COVID-19가 회계정보의 특성 중의 하나인 비교가능성을 저하시킨다는 것을 처음으로 밝혔다는 데에 의의가 있다. 이러한 결과는 팬데믹 기간에 회계 정보이용자들이 회계정보를 분석 및 이용함에 있어 더욱 유의할 필요가 있음을 시사한다.

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