IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v61y2016i1p221-238.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting conservatism and firm investment efficiency

Author

Listed:
  • García Lara, Juan Manuel
  • García Osma, Beatriz
  • Penalva, Fernando

Abstract

We argue that conservatism improves investment efficiency. In particular, we predict that it resolves debt-equity conflicts, facilitating a firm׳s access to debt financing and limiting underinvestment. This permits the financing of prudent investments that otherwise might not be pursued. Our empirical results confirm these predictions. We find that more conservative firms invest more and issue more debt in settings prone to underinvestment and that these effects are more pronounced in firms characterized by greater information asymmetries. We also find that conservatism is associated with reduced overinvestment, even for opaque investments such as research and development.

Suggested Citation

  • García Lara, Juan Manuel & García Osma, Beatriz & Penalva, Fernando, 2016. "Accounting conservatism and firm investment efficiency," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 221-238.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:61:y:2016:i:1:p:221-238
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2015.07.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165410115000506
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jacceco.2015.07.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bo Becker & Per Strömberg, 2012. "Fiduciary Duties and Equity-debtholder Conflicts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(6), pages 1931-1969.
    2. Hovakimian, Armen & Opler, Tim & Titman, Sheridan, 2001. "The Debt-Equity Choice," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 1-24, March.
    3. Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2002. "What Drives Firm‐Level Stock Returns?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 233-264, February.
    4. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:1:p:1-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Wittenberg-Moerman, Regina, 2008. "The role of information asymmetry and financial reporting quality in debt trading: Evidence from the secondary loan market," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2-3), pages 240-260, December.
    6. Göx, Robert F. & Wagenhofer, Alfred, 2009. "Optimal impairment rules," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 2-16, October.
    7. Valeri V. Nikolaev, 2010. "Debt Covenants and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 48(1), pages 137-176, March.
    8. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1991. "The Theory of Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 297-355, March.
    9. Leland, Hayne E, 1994. "Corporate Debt Value, Bond Covenants, and Optimal Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1213-1252, September.
    10. Xin Chang & Sudipto Dasgupta & Gilles Hilary, 2006. "Analyst Coverage and Financing Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 3009-3048, December.
    11. Joshua D. Rauh & Amir Sufi, 2010. "Capital Structure and Debt Structure," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(12), pages 4242-4280, December.
    12. Murray Z. Frank & Vidhan K. Goyal, 2009. "Capital Structure Decisions: Which Factors Are Reliably Important?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 1-37, March.
    13. Francis, Jere R. & Martin, Xiumin, 2010. "Acquisition profitability and timely loss recognition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1-2), pages 161-178, February.
    14. Ole‐Kristian Hope & Wayne B. Thomas, 2008. "Managerial Empire Building and Firm Disclosure," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 46(3), pages 591-626, June.
    15. Eugene F. Fama, 2002. "Testing Trade-Off and Pecking Order Predictions About Dividends and Debt," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 1-33, March.
    16. Myers, Stewart C., 2003. "Financing of corporations," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 215-253, Elsevier.
    17. Ettredge, Michael & Huang, Ying & Zhang, Weining, 2012. "Earnings restatements and differential timeliness of accounting conservatism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 489-503.
    18. Daniel A. Bens & Steven J. Monahan, 2004. "Disclosure Quality and the Excess Value of Diversification," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 691-730, September.
    19. Gilles Hilary & Sudipto Dasgupta & Xing Chang, 2009. "The Effect of Auditor Quality on Financing Decisions," Post-Print hal-00481935, HAL.
    20. Khan, Mozaffar & Watts, Ross L., 2009. "Estimation and empirical properties of a firm-year measure of accounting conservatism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2-3), pages 132-150, December.
    21. Anne Beatty & W. Scott Liao & Joseph Weber, 2010. "The Effect of Private Information and Monitoring on the Role of Accounting Quality in Investment Decisions," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 17-47, March.
    22. Lucas, Deborah J & McDonald, Robert L, 1990. "Equity Issues and Stock Price Dynamics," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1019-1043, September.
    23. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    24. Gao, Pingyang, 2013. "A measurement approach to conservatism and earnings management," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 251-268.
    25. Gilles Hilary & Gary C. Biddle, 2006. "Accounting Quality and Firm-Level Capital Investment," Post-Print hal-00481720, HAL.
    26. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    27. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    28. Armen Hovakimian, 2004. "The Role of Target Leverage in Security Issues and Repurchases," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 1041-1072, October.
    29. Amir Sufi, 2007. "Information Asymmetry and Financing Arrangements: Evidence from Syndicated Loans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 629-668, April.
    30. Basu, Sudipta, 1997. "The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 3-37, December.
    31. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    32. Jackson, Scott B. & (Kelvin) Liu, Xiaotao & Cecchini, Mark, 2009. "Economic consequences of firms' depreciation method choice: Evidence from capital investments," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 54-68, October.
    33. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. "The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    34. Michael Faulkender & Mitchell A. Petersen, 2006. "Does the Source of Capital Affect Capital Structure?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 45-79.
    35. Dechow, Patricia M., 1994. "Accounting earnings and cash flows as measures of firm performance : The role of accounting accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 3-42, July.
    36. Robert M. Bushman & Joseph D. Piotroski & Abbie J. Smith, 2011. "Capital Allocation and Timely Accounting Recognition of Economic Losses," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1-2), pages 1-33, January.
    37. Jayaraman, Sudarshan, 2012. "The effect of enforcement on timely loss recognition: Evidence from insider trading laws," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 77-97.
    38. Ball, Ray & Shivakumar, Lakshmanan, 2005. "Earnings quality in UK private firms: comparative loss recognition timeliness," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 83-128, February.
    39. Roychowdhury, Sugata, 2010. "Discussion of: "Acquisition profitability and timely loss recognition" by J. Francis and X. Martin," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1-2), pages 179-183, February.
    40. Amir Sufi, 2009. "Bank Lines of Credit in Corporate Finance: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1057-1088, March.
    41. Childs, Paul D. & Mauer, David C. & Ott, Steven H., 2005. "Interactions of corporate financing and investment decisions: The effects of agency conflicts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 667-690, June.
    42. Dechow, Patricia M. & Kothari, S. P. & L. Watts, Ross, 1998. "The relation between earnings and cash flows," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 133-168, May.
    43. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1995. "What Do We Know about Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1421-1460, December.
    44. Amir Sufi, 2009. "Bank Lines of Credit in Corporate Finance: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1057-1088.
    45. Anne Beatty & W. Scott Liao & Joseph Weber, 2010. "The Effect of Private Information and Monitoring on the Role of Accounting Quality in Investment Decisions," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 1-1, March.
    46. Valeri V. Nikolaev, 2010. "Debt Covenants and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 51-89, March.
    47. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    48. Frank, Murray Z. & Goyal, Vidhan K., 2003. "Testing the pecking order theory of capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 217-248, February.
    49. Michael J. Barclay & Clifford W. Smith, 1999. "The Capital Structure Puzzle: Another Look At The Evidence," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 12(1), pages 8-20, March.
    50. David Aboody & Baruch Lev, 2000. "Information Asymmetry, R&D, and Insider Gains," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2747-2766, December.
    51. Ahmed, Anwer S. & Duellman, Scott, 2007. "Accounting conservatism and board of director characteristics: An empirical analysis," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2-3), pages 411-437, July.
    52. Givoly, Dan & Hayn, Carla, 2000. "The changing time-series properties of earnings, cash flows and accruals: Has financial reporting become more conservative?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 287-320, June.
    53. Qi Chen & Thomas Hemmer & Yun Zhang, 2007. "On the Relation between Conservatism in Accounting Standards and Incentives for Earnings Management," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(3), pages 541-565, June.
    54. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    55. Jeroen Suijs, 2008. "On the Value Relevance of Asymmetric Financial Reporting Policies," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 46(5), pages 1297-1321, December.
    56. Todd A. Gormley & Bong Hwan Kim & Xiumin Martin, 2012. "Do Firms Adjust Their Timely Loss Recognition in Response to Changes in the Banking Industry?," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 50(1), pages 159-196, March.
    57. Ray Ball & S. P. Kothari & Valeri V. Nikolaev, 2013. "Econometrics of the Basu Asymmetric Timeliness Coefficient and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 51(5), pages 1071-1097, December.
    58. Bargeron, Leonce L. & Lehn, Kenneth M. & Zutter, Chad J., 2010. "Sarbanes-Oxley and corporate risk-taking," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1-2), pages 34-52, February.
    59. Karthik Balakrishnan & John E. Core & Rodrigo S. Verdi, 2014. "The Relation Between Reporting Quality and Financing and Investment: Evidence from Changes in Financing Capacity," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 52(1), pages 1-36, March.
    60. Zhang, Jieying, 2008. "The contracting benefits of accounting conservatism to lenders and borrowers," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 27-54, March.
    61. Ball, R & Lev, B & Watts, R, 1976. "Income Variation And Balance-Sheet Compositions," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 1-9.
    62. Cheng, Mei & Dhaliwal, Dan & Zhang, Yuan, 2013. "Does investment efficiency improve after the disclosure of material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 1-18.
    63. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Inder K. Khurana & Changjiang Wang, 2015. "Debt Maturity Structure and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1-2), pages 167-203, January.
    2. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    3. Kravet, Todd D., 2014. "Accounting conservatism and managerial risk-taking: Corporate acquisitions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 218-240.
    4. Araceli Mora & Martin Walker, 2015. "The implications of research on accounting conservatism for accounting standard setting," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 620-650, August.
    5. Ha, Joohyung, 2019. "Agency costs of free cash flow and conditional conservatism," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Liu, Chih-Liang & Lai, Shu-Miao & Haw, In-Mu, 2024. "Director networks, accounting conservatism and director reputation: Evidence after financial reporting failure," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6).
    7. Liu, Sun & Zhang, Jie, 2023. "Conditional conservatism and investment efficiency under a state ownership environment: Further evidence from China," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    8. Beatriz García & Juan M. Garcia Lara & Fenando Penalva, 2010. "Accounting Conservatism and Firm Investment Efficiency," Working Papers 1004, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised Jan 2010.
    9. Ha, Joohyung & Feng, Mingming, 2018. "Conditional conservatism and labor investment efficiency," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 143-163.
    10. Juan Manuel García Lara & Beatriz García Osma & Fernando Penalva, 2014. "Information Consequences of Accounting Conservatism," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 173-198, June.
    11. Biddle, Gary C. & Hilary, Gilles & Verdi, Rodrigo S., 2009. "How does financial reporting quality relate to investment efficiency?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2-3), pages 112-131, December.
    12. Bo-Hung Chiou & Shen-Ho Chang, 2020. "Influence of Investment Efficiency by Managers and Accounting Conservatism on Idiosyncratic Risks to Investors," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 10(1), pages 1-8.
    13. Mingzhi Liu & Michel Magnan, 2016. "Conditional conservatism and the yield spread of corporate bond issues," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 847-879, May.
    14. Li, Keming & Nishikawa, Takeshi & Rao, Ramesh P., 2025. "Does the threat of short selling discipline management? Evidence from default risk changes around regulation SHO," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    15. Murray Z. Frank & Vidhan K. Goyal, 2009. "Capital Structure Decisions: Which Factors Are Reliably Important?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 1-37, March.
    16. Khalifa, Mariem & Trabelsi, Samir & Matoussi, Hamadi, 2022. "Leverage, R&D expenditures, and accounting conservatism: Evidence from technology firms," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 285-304.
    17. Archana Jain & Chinmay Jain & Ashok Robin, 2020. "Does accounting conservatism deter short sellers?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 1075-1100, April.
    18. Urooj Khan & Alvis K. Lo, 2019. "Bank Lending Standards and Borrower Accounting Conservatism," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5337-5359, November.
    19. Roychowdhury, Sugata & Shroff, Nemit & Verdi, Rodrigo S., 2019. "The effects of financial reporting and disclosure on corporate investment: A review," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2).
    20. Chen-Yin Kuo, 2018. "Does Accounting Conservatism Reduce Default Risk? Evidence from Taiwan," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 8(4), pages 227-242.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:61:y:2016:i:1:p:221-238. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.