Does earnings quality of listed firms differ from public firms?

• Main Authors: Whan-Chan Lin, 林宛嬋
• Other Authors: 楊炎杰
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/81304972448750751770

碩士 === 元智大學 === 會計學程 === 99 === This thesis compares the earnings quality of Taiwan listed firms to that of public firms. This thesis develops and tests two hypotheses. The “demand hypothesis” holds that earnings of listed firms are of higher quality than earnings of public firms due to stronger market demand by shareholders and creditors for quality reporting. On the contrary, the “opportunistic behavior hypothesis” posits that listed public firms have lower earnings quality than public firms because the managers in listed public firms have greater incentives to manage earnings. The empirical results show that listed firms have a higher quality of accruals in term of their persistence and estimation error, they also report more conservatively than public firms. This is consistent with the “demand hypothesis”, which suggests that the demand for high-quality financial statements is greater for listed public firms than for public firms.