본 논문은 1980년부터 2008년까지 한국거래소시장(KOSPI)에 상장된 제조업을 대상으로 현금보유에 대한 회계정보의 질(발생액 질) 효과를 검증한다. 회계정보의 질은 정보비대칭을 줄이며, 대리인비용을 감소시킬 수 있고, 따라서 역선택비용을 줄일 수 있게 됨에 따라 결국 현금보유수준을 낮게 유지할 것이다. 본 논문의 실증결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 포트폴리오 접근법에서 소규모 기업에서 회계정보의 질이 낮았으며 이러한 것은 작은 기업에서 정보비대칭이 높다는 기존의 결과와 일치하고 있다. 둘째, AQDD(회계정보의 질 대용치인, 발생액의 질의 역수)는 현금보유수준에 유의적인 정의 영향을 주었다. 따라서 한 단위 표준편차의 발생액 질의 증가는 Cash1의 경우 0.46% 및 0.43, Cash2의 경우 0.81% 및 0.82%의 현금 보유수준을 감소시켰다. 셋째, 외환위기 전·후로 분석한 결과 외환위기 이전 기간에서 발생액 질에 대한 민감도가 보다 높게 나타났다. 즉 외환위기 이전에는 한 단위 발생액 질의 표준편차 증가는 0.66%(Cash1) 및 1.07%(Cash2)의 현금보유수준 감소 및 외환위기 이후에는 0.42%(Cash1) 및 0.44%(Cash2)의 현금보유수준이 감소하였다. 강건성을 검증하기 위해 대안적인 발생액 질을 이용한 분석 결과에서도 기존 결과와 동일하게 나타났으며 결국 본 논문의 결과는 일관성이 있음을 확인하였다. 추가적으로 재벌 및 비재벌을 통제한 강건성 검증에서도 위와 결과가 동일함을 확인하였다. 결국 기업은 발생액의 질을 높임으로써 정보비대칭, 대리인비용, 자본비용 등을 낮출 수 있으며, 따라서 경영자로 하여금 기업의 비생산적인 현금보유 수준을 최소화시킴으로써 기업의 가치를 제고할 수 있는 정책을 얻을 수 있을 것이다.
This paper investigates the relation between financial reporting quality and corporate cash holdings on a sample of 6,832 firm-year observations between 1980 and 2008. Financial reporting quality has been posited to reduce asymmetric information, agency cost, and capital cost and in turn improve investment efficiency. As a result, firm with higher accrual quality(financial reporting quality) leads corporate manager to reduce corporate cash holdings. Prior many papers have studied the determinants of cash holding motivation. However, the relationship between cash holdings and financial reporting quality was not investigated yet exception some abroad papers. Therefore, we have the motivation of investigating the relationship between the financial reporting quality and corporate cash holdings. Additionally, we examine the this relation under controlling for Chaebol-nonChaebol due to the characteristics of Korean firms. In many studies of the relationship between the quality of accounting information and asymmetric information, the asymmetric information affects a cost of capital(Easely and O`Hara, 2004). The capital cost, in turn, is affected by the quality of accounting information quality proxied for accrual quality(Lambert et al., 2007). Based on these results and evidences, finally as the quality of accounting information increases, the extent of the asymmetric information decreases and also the debt cost will be reduced (Bhattacharya et. al., 2003; Francis et. al., 2004). In addition, the quality of accounting information reduces the asymmetric information and also mitigates the conflict of agency problem between insider and outsider of firms. As a result, monitoring cost to watch managers will be down and finally makes rational decision making of new project in increasing the value of firm(Verdi, 2006). Actually, information asymmetry and the conflict of agency make fund inflow from outside of firm difficult and in turn, they are main factors for increasing the cost of capital. Thus, firms have incentive in stocking the more liquidity asset to reduce the cost from outside financing. As mentioned above results, we have the opportunity to investigate Korean firms whether there is this relation between the quality of accounting information and cash holdings of firm. In this paper, we have portfolio approach and regression analysis method to identify this relation. We use accrual quality as proxy for reporting quality and find whether there is consistent result with above papers. The evidences from this study are as follows: First, according to portfolio approach, small firm has lower accrual quality, implying poor accounting information quality, and also this evidence is consistent with what small firm has higher asymmetric information rather than large firm. Second, the accrual quality(inverse measure of AQDD) as proxy for accounting information quality affects significantly negative on cash holdings statistically, economically, and financially. Third, after separating before and after Korean Financial Crisis time, we find that the coefficient sensitive on change in accrual quality is more elasticity before Korean Financial Crisis rather than after Korean Financial Crisis. To check the robustness of these results, alternative accrual qualities are used and after all, these results are consistent and robust regardless of any alternative proxies and models. Additionally, this paper investigates that our results are due to the characteristic factors of Chaebol-nonChaebol. As a result, this analysis finds that our results are also robust under controlling for the characteristic factors of Chaebol-nonChaebol. Therefore, the evidences of this paper provide the existence of the strong relation between the quality of accounting information and cash holdings of form.