| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 會計研究所 === 94 === Prior empirical studies indicate that researchers have to control for the level of beginning-of-period earnings conservatism when discussing earnings conservatism in the current period. The negative association between beginning-of-period earnings conservatism and earnings conservatism in the current period will dilute the effect of our explanation of earnings conservatism in the current period. Using beginning-of-period price-to-book ratios to proxy for beginning-of-period earnings conservatism, this study examines earnings conservatism in Taiwan during the period from 1999 to 2004, and discusses the relationship between earnings conservatism and shareholding ratios of foreign institutional investors. The definition of earnings conservatism is based on Basu(1997). The empirical results show that earnings in Taiwan demonstrate the characteristic of earnings conservatism in recent years, and that beginning-of-period price-to-book ratios are negatively associated with the level of earnings conservatism. As for the analysis of the link between shareholding ratios of foreign institutional investors and earnings conservatism, this study fails to find the evidence that shareholding ratios of foreign institutional investors have significant impacts on earnings conservatism after controlling for the level of beginning-of-period price-to-book ratios. However, in the portfolio of the highest beginning-of-period price-to-book ratios, there is a positive relationship between earnings conservatism and shareholding ratios of foreign institutional investors in the next period. This result means that firms with the highest level of beginning-of-period earnings conservatism will have higher shareholding ratios of foreign institutional investors in the next period if their earnings in the current period are relatively more conservative. However, when this study uses the instrumental variable to measure shareholding ratios of foreign institutional investors, shareholding ratios of foreign institutional investors, whether in the current or next period, do not have a significant relationship with the level of earnings conservatism. In summary, using data from 1999 to 2004, this study finds that there is significantly negative association between beginning-of-period earnings conservatism and earnings conservatism in the current period, and that earnings in Taiwan demonstrate the characteristic of earnings conservatism whether controlling for the level of beginning-of-period earnings conservatism or not, but this study fails to obtain sufficient evidence to assert that foreign investment has systematic effects on earnings conservatism in Taiwan.
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