期刊名称：Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers (früher: Bank of Finland Discussion Papers)
印刷版ISSN：0785-3572
电子版ISSN：1456-6184
出版年度：2013
卷号：2013
出版社：Suomen Pankki = Bank of Finland
摘要：Using the recent financial crisis as a natural quasi-experiment, we test whether and to what extent conservative accounting affects shareholder value. We find that there is significantly positive and economically meaningful relation between conservatism and firm stock performance during the current crisis. The result holds for alternative measures of conservatism and is validated in a series of robustness checks. We further find that the relation between conservatism and firm value is more pronounced for firms with weaker corporate governance or higher information asymmetry. Overall, our paper complements LaFond and Watts (2008) by providing empirical evidence to their argument that conservatism is an efficient governance mechanism to mitigate information risk and control for agency problems, and that shareholders benefit from it.
