采用国际会计准则财务报表的影响：德国的情况【外文翻译】

1、外文翻译Financial statement effects of adopting international accounting standards: the case of GermanyMaterial Source: Author: Mingyi Hung K. R. Subramanyam1 IntroductionAs of January 1,2005, all listed companies in the European Union are required to prepare their financial statements in accordance wit

2、h International Accounting Standards (IAS) (Hofheinz 2002). IAS adoption by the European Union is one of the biggest events in the history of financial reporting, making IAS the most widely accepted financial accounting model in the world. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for managers and invest

3、ors to understand the implications of IAS adoption. This is especially true in European countries with stakeholder-orientedaccounting systems (such as Germany and France), as IAS is heavily influenced by the shareholder-oriented Anglo-Saxon accounting model, whereas local standards in many European

4、countries have a greater contracting orientation and are driven by tax-book conformity considerations.The objective of our paper is to examine the financial statement effects of adopting IAS in European countries with stakeholder-oriented accounting systems. We conduct our investigation using a samp

5、le of 80 German firms that adopt IAS for the first time during the 1998 through 2002 period. Specifically, we investigate the effects of IAS adoption on financial statementsby (1) documenting the financial statement changes precipitated by IAS adoption and (2) examining the effects of these changes

6、on the properties of financial statement information. Examining financial statement implications is important because, while IAS adoption might lead to indirect economic consequences such as higher market liquidity or lower cost of capital, the only direct effects of adopting IAS are changed financi

7、al statements (and related footnote disclosures).We limit our investigation to Germany primarily to overcome problems associated with comparing across countries with different institutional environments. In addition, Germany is particularly well suited for our empirical investigation for several rea

8、sons. First, Germany provides an ideal natural experiment for examining the financial statement effects of IAS adoption in countries with stakeholder-oriented accounting systems because, unlike IAS, German CAAP or the German Commercial Code (Handelsge.setzbuch;henceforth, HGB) emphasizes a "pru

9、dent" approach to asset valuation and liability recognition to facilitate contracting among stakeholders (Harris et al. 1994; Leuz and Wustemann 2004).2 Second, because Germany has a strong rule of law tradition and an efficient judicial system, we can be assuredthat there is adequateenforcemen

10、t of accounting rules (La Porta et al. 1998).3 Third, a relatively large number of German companies have adopted IAS, which provides us a reasonably large sample.4Our research design allows us to directly compare accounting numbers (and their properties) prepared under HGB with those prepared under

11、IAS. A direct comparison is possible because German firms adopting IAS are required to restate their prior-year results under IAS during the adoption year; that is, IAS-adopting firms are required to issue financial statements prepared under both IAS and HGB for the year before adoption. Accordingly

12、, our research design controls for cross-sectional and time-series differences between IAS and HGB firm-years. In addition, we restrict our sample to firms adopting IAS in 1998 or thereafter. Two important events occurred in 1998: (1) the core IAS standards were completed, and (2) IAS adopters were

13、mandated to fully comply with the IAS standards (before 1998, companies could choose to implement only a subset of IAS standards). 5 Hence, examining post-1997 adoptions ensures that our IAS firm-years are representative.Our empirical investigation comprises two basic sets of analyses. Our first set

14、 of analyses documents the major accounting differences between HGB and IAS as well as the effects of IAS adoption on key accounting measures such as book value of equity and net income. Based on the book value and net income reconciliation adjustments that a subset of our sample firms report in the

15、ir annual reports, we find that switching to IAS results in widespread and significant changes to deferred taxes, pensions, PP&E, and loss provisions. In addition, we find that total assets and book value of equity are significantly larger under IAS than under HGB and that cross-sectional variat

16、ion in book value and net income are significantly higher under IAS than under HGB. Overall, our results are consistent with HGB emphasizing the prudence principle (balance sheet conservatism) and income smoothing-for example, limited recognition of assets and frequent use of discretionary loss prov

17、isions-and IAS emphasizing fair values and balance sheet valuation-for example, the use of fair value for financial instruments and recognition of internally developed intangibles.Our second set of analyses investigates the effects of IAS adoption on the relative and incremental value relevance of b

18、ook values and net income as well as the asymmetric timeliness of net income. Since our sample companies voluntarily adopt IAS and therefore do not represent a random selection of German firms, we implement the two-stage regression procedure suggested by Heckman (1979) to control for the effect of s

19、elf-selection in these tests. We measure value relevance in terms of the ability of accounting measures to explain contemporaneous stock prices. Our relative value relevance analysis finds no evidence that IAS improves the value relevance of book value or net income. However, we find that book value

20、 (net income) is accorded a significantly larger (smaller) valuation coefficient under IAS than under HGB, consistent with IAS markedly reducing income persistence (Ohlson 1995). In addition, our incremental value relevance results show that while the IAS adjustments to book value are value relevant

21、, they add noise (measurement error) to income. Overall, our value relevance results are consistent with IAS being balance sheet- and fair value-orientated and HGB being income smoothing- and historical cost-oriented.Finally, we compare the timeliness and asymmetric timeliness of income measured und

22、er HGB and IAS. As in Ball et al. (2000), we estimate both timeliness and asymmetric timeliness (conditional conservatism) by regressing income on returns interacted with a variable that measures the sign of returns. Our results are consistent with IAS recognizing economic lossesin a timelier manner

23、 than HGB, which suggeststhat IAS income is more conditionally conservative than its HGB counterpart. However, these results are not statistically significant.Two factors could potentially bias our results. First, we conduct our analyses in the year before IAS adoption, when IAS numbers are unavaila

24、ble to the market. It is possible that our results are driven by the inability of the market to price IAS information at the time we conduct our tests. Accordingly, we conduct additional analyses using future prices and returns as proposed by Aboody et al. (2002). The results of these analyses sugge

25、st that the unavailability of IAS information is not likely to affect our inferences. Second, it is possible that our sample companies gradually narrowed differences between HGB and IAS before IAS adoption that is, gradually transitioned to IAS, potentially lowering the power of our tests (Barth et

26、al. 2005). However, our additional analyses find little evidence of such gradual transition, which suggests that our results are robust to this alternative explanation.'Our paper's primary contributions to the literature are threefold. First, we provide evidence on the likely financial state

27、ment effects of IAS adoption throughout the European Union, arguably one of the biggest events in the history of financial reporting. Unlike Barth et al. (2005), who study a large sample of firms from many different countries, we conduct a detailed examination on a small sample of German firms that

28、voluntarily adopt IAS using a design that provides superior experimental control.Second, we contribute to the literature examining the valuation properties of IAS (for example, Ashbaugh and Olsson 2002; Harris and Muller 1999) by focusing our investigation on the period after both the adoption of th

29、e core standards by the IASC and the requirement of full compliance. Thus, our paper is arguably the first to examine the financial statement effects of truly representativeIAS. Consequently, we are the first to document the substantial fair-value orientation of IAS and its implications for the valu

30、e relevance and timeliness of financial statement information.Third, we contribute to the debate on the relative superiority of the Anglo- Saxon shareholder-oriented versus the continental European stakeholder-oriented accounting models. Prior studies using cross-country comparisons conclude that th

31、e shareholder-oriented model is more value relevant (Ali and Hwang 2000) but are unable to disentangle the effects of accounting standards from other institutional factors such as shareholder protection or market development. In contrast, we implement a design that allows us to examine the effects o

32、f accounting differences under a ceteris paribus condition and find no significant differences in value relevance between stakeholder-oriented (HGB) and share- holder-oriented (IAS) accounting models, although we do find suggestive evidence that IAS income may recognize economic lossesin a timelier

33、manner. While speculative in nature, our results are consistent with Ball et al. (2003), who show that institutional factors such as shareholder protection may play a more important role than accounting standards in explaining cross-country variation in the valuation properties of accounting data.Th

34、e rest of the paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 describes the sample. Section 3 discusses accounting differences between HGB and IAS. Section 4 presents our procedure to correct for potential self-selection bias. Section 5 provides the results on the value relevance of HGB and IAS measures, while

35、 Section 6 examines differences in asymmetric timeliness. Section 7 discusses several robustness tests. Finally, Section 8 concludes.The average effects of net income reconciliation items are generally in the same direction as those of book value reconciliation items, except for the adjustments rela

36、ted to provisions and deferred taxes. We note that the accounting differences do not necessarily change book value and net income in the same direction because book value captures the cumulative effect of accounting differences whereas net income captures the effect during the fiscal year. For examp

37、le, while the change from tax-based accelerated depreciation methods to straight-line depreciation methods will increase book value of PP&E and therefore increase book value of equity, it will generally decrease (increase) depreciation expense and therefore increase (decrease) net income in the

38、earlier (later) stage of PP & E's useful life.Since the net income adjustments result from the same accounting differences described in Sect. 3.1.1, we only provide a brief description of the five most frequent adjustment items: Deferred Taxes. As expected, deferred taxes represent the most

39、frequent net income adjustment item, reported in 81% of observations. In addition, IAS expense adjustments related to defer taxes on average reduce net income by, 7 million. Property, Plant, and Equipment (PP&E) IAS adjustments related to PP&E on average increase net income by, 19 million, i

40、ndicating a decreasedepreciation expense related to PP&E during the reporting period. Leases, IAS adjustments related to leases on average increase net income by, 28 million, indicating a decrease in expenses (such as interest and depreciation expenses related to the lease) during the reporting

41、period Pensions. While IAS adjustments related to pensions are relatively frequent, the average effect on net income is miniscule (the mean and median are both less than one Euro million). The small effect in net income suggests that most of the increase in pension liability is reflected in its open

42、ing balance for the reporting period, Goodwill. IAS adjustments related to goodwill on average increase net income by ?2 million, indicating a decreasein goodwill amortization expense during the reporting period.译文采用国际会计准则财务报表的影响：德国的情况资料来源:作者：MingyiHung K.R.Subramanyam1简介截至2005年1月1日，在欧洲联盟的所有上市公司被要求准

43、备依据国际会 计准则（IAS）（霍夫海因茨2002）来编制其财务报表。国际会计准则由欧洲联 盟通过是在财务报告历史上最大的事件之一，国际会计准则是在世界金融会计 中最为广泛接受的模型。因此，对管理人员和投资者来说需要迫切了解和适应 国际会计准则。这在欧洲国家（如德国和法国），利益相关者以会计制度为导向， 因为国际会计准则在很大程度上受股东为导向的盎格鲁撒克逊会计模式影响， 而地方标准，在许多欧洲国家有更大的方向并且承包驱动由税务书符合考虑。我们的目的是审查通过与利益相关者为导向的国际会计制度在欧洲国家的 的执行对财务报表的影响。我们对80个德国公司进行了采用国际会计准则的抽 样调查，在1998

44、年到2002年期间。具体来说，我们试图探讨采用国际会计准 则对财务报表的影响从以下几方面：（1）按国际会计准则的变化来记录财务报 表变得有些沉淀；（2）审查财务报表信息对这些变化的性质的影响。审查财务 报表的影响是很重要的，因为在采用国际会计准则时可能导致间接的经济后果， 如较高的市场流动性或降低资金成本，但采用国际会计准则的直接影响是改变 财务报表（及相关附注披露）。我们限制我们的调查在德国，主要是为了克服国家间不同体制环境的有关 问题。止匕外，德国是特别适合我们实证研究有以下几个原因：首先，德国提供 了审视国家，因为它不同于国际会计准则，德国CAAP德国商法典或利益相关者为导向的会计制度采

45、用的国际会计准则财务报表的影响，理想的天然实验（Handelsge.setzbuch强调“谨慎”资产评估方法和负债的确认，以便利益相 关者之间承包（哈里斯等人，1994, Leuz和Wustemann）。第二，因为彳惠国的 法律传统和有效的司法系统的强规则，我们可以放心，他提供适当的执行会计 规则的环境（La Porta等人，1998）。第三,德国企业相对较多采用国际会计准 则，这为我们提供了相当大的样本。我们的研究设计，使我们能够直接比较会计数据（和它们的属性）根据国 际会计准则下编制。一个直接的比较是可能的，因为德国公司采用国际会计准则都必须重申在通过前一年的国际会计准则下的结果，也就是说

46、，国际会计准 则，企业必须通过发行准备年度内均采用国际会计准则和财务报表之前。 因此, 我们的研究设计控制的横截面和时间序列之间的国际会计准则和 HGB事务所 的年差异。止匕外，我们限制我们的样本企业采用国际会计准则在 1998年或以后。 两个重要的事件发生在1998年：（1）国际会计准则的标准已经完成；（2）国际 会计准则采用的授权完全符合国际会计准则标准（1998年以前，企业可以选择 只实现了国际会计准则标准的一个子集） 的核心。因此，审查1997年国际会计 准则的接受确保我们的企业，年具有代表性。我们的实证研究包括两个基本集的分析。我们的分析文件，第一组分析 HGB和国际会计准则之间的主

47、要会计差异以及如账面价值和净资产收益的国 际会计准则核算的关键措施的影响。基于账面价值与和解的调整，纯收入在其 年度报告中的一个子集我们的样本公司的报告，我们发现，在广泛交换和重大 变化递延税，养老金，PP&E的，国际会计准则的规定和损失的结果。止匕外， 我们发现，总资产及帐面权益价值有显着较大的国际会计准则下，HGB,而且超过帐面价值和净利润根据国际会计准则的变化有显着高于HGB下。总的来说，我们的结果与HGB强调谨慎性原则（资产负债表保守）和收入平滑，例 如，资产有限的承认和频繁使用的规定酌情损失和国际会计准则强调公允价值 和资产负债表估值一致的，例如，公允价值运用金融工具和国内认

48、可开发无形 资产。第二组的分析，我们在探讨的帐面价值和净利润的相对和增量价值相关性， 以及不对称的纯收入及时采纳了国际会计准则的影响。由于我们的样本企业自 愿采用国际会计准则，因此并不代表随机选择的德国企业，我们实行的两阶段 回归程序由Heckman （1979）建议控制对自我选择在这些测试中的作用。我们 衡量在会计方面的价值相关措施的能力来解释当期股票价格。我们的相对价值 相关性分析发现，没有证据表明国际会计准则提高了纯收入的账面价值或价值 相关性。然而，我们发现，帐面价值（净收入）是给予显着增大（小）根据国 际会计准则估值系数比在HGB,与国际会计准则明显减少收入的持久性（奥尔 森1995年）相一致。止匕外，我们的增量价值相关性结果表明，虽然国际会计准 则调整帐面价值的价值相关性，但加噪声（测量误差）的收入。总的来说，我 们的价值相关性的结果与资产负债表正在和公允价值为主导的收入和HGB是平滑和历史成本为导向的国际会计准则一致。最后，我们比较的及时性和国际会计准则衡量下，HGB和收入不对称的及 时性。我们估计，回归与一个变量的措施，回报签署增收双赢互动的及时性和 收益不对称的及时性（有条件的保守主义）。我们的结果与认识：与HGB相比