會計師法律責任與資訊不對稱之關聯研究

Abstract

本論文主要在於觀察臺灣地區會計師法律責任與資訊不對稱的關聯性，為有效捕捉會計師法律責任變化的影響，對於2004年發生博達舞弊案後及2005年起開始進行證券交易法法規修正，本論文茲以2005年作為子樣本期間劃分依據，進一步檢測舞弊案發生後，資訊揭露品質是否具有顯著性的改變。另一方面，回顧過去相關文獻，除了對於會計師法律責任變動少有著墨外，對於資訊不對稱的衡量亦無一致性的量化衡量方式，因此，在收集攸關公司特性變數，包括公司獲利性、規模因子、槓桿變化、成長性等變數，亦進一步計算公司營運風險與市場風險，而資訊不對稱衡量方式，則採用Dechow et al. (1995)所提出盈餘管理估計方法，茲以進行各重要變數間混合迴歸模型(pooled regression model)的估計。資料取自於臺灣經濟新報(Taiwan Economic Journal, TEJ)資料庫資訊，樣本期間為2003年到2016年所有存續經營的公司，合計完整家數計有641家公司。\n實證結果證實公司特性變數與風險結構對資訊不對稱程度的影響，扮演著重要的解釋能力，隨著公司規模持續擴增、成長性增加與對外舉債程度越高的公司，在內外部監督機制下，將有助於提升資訊揭露品質；然而，倘若公司僅致力績效改善，將會驅使公司進行報表窗飾，造成資訊不對稱的問題，而市場風險亦為解釋資訊不對稱的重要因素之一。再者，在2004年發生博達舞弊案後，會計師法律責任的改變，對資訊透明化具有明顯改善的實質效果，有助於市場參與者使用報表資訊進行相關決策。最後，因現今金融商品不斷推陳出新，衍生性商品多樣化對資訊不對稱，仍有一定程度的同向關聯性，故本論文建議市場參與者應提高資訊收集與分析能力，方能提高財報資訊背後所隱含的重要經濟意涵與會計政策。\n關鍵詞：會計師法律責任、資訊不對稱、盈餘管理、衍生性商品。

Abstract\n The main purpose of this thesis is to observe the relevance between the legal liability of accountants and information asymmetry in Taiwan and to effectively capture the impact of changes in accountant liability law on information asymmetry of financial reports. The amendments to the Securities Exchange Act will start in 2005 after the fraud of Procomp Informatics Ltd. in 2004. The thesis divides into two sub-sample periods by 2005 act to further test whether the quality of information disclosure has a significant change after the occurrence of the fraud case. On the other hand, after reviewing the relevant literatures in the past, little studies have investigated the changes of the legal responsibility of accountants, and previous studies are not also to provide consistent quantitative indicator of the measurement of information asymmetry. Therefore, this thesis collects relevant variables as firm-specific characteristics including company profitability, firm’s size, leverage, and growth, as well as it also further calculated the operational risk and market risk in order to capture the variation of information asymmetry. The estimated model is proposed by Dechow et al. (1995). Controlling the effect of all variables, the pooled regression model is adopted to investigate the relationship between the legal liability of accountants and information asymmetry. The data was taken from the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) database information. During the sample period, all the companies have to be survived from 2003 to 2016. Therefore, the total numbers of companies are 641.\n The empirical results confirm there are significant influences of firm-specific characteristic and risk structures on the degree of information asymmetry, and the legal responsibility of accountant play an important explanatory after 2005. As the company`s scale continues to expand, the growth rate increases, and the degree of leverage is higher, the internal and external supervision mechanism can decrease the earning management. It effectively improve the quality of information disclosure. However, if the company has devoted to increase the profitability, it will drive the manager to use window dressing, resulting in the problem of information asymmetric. In addition, market risk is also one of the important factors to explain information asymmetry. After the fraud of Procomp Informatics Ltd., there is significant improvement in the effects of changes in the legal responsibilities on degree of information transparency. It improves the information efficiency that market participants use the information of financial statements to make relevant decisions. Finally, due to the continuous innovation of financial products, and the diversification of derivative commodities, this study suggests that market participants should increase the ability of information collections and analysis in order to know that the implied important implications of economics and accounting policies.\nKey words: Legal Responsibility, Information Asymmetry, Earning management, Derivatives.