본 연구에서는 국제회계기준의 도입과 함께 2008년부터 국내시장에 허용된 자산재평가의 영향에 대해 살펴보았다. 자산재평가를 옹호하는 측에서는 자산재평가가 회계정보의 목적적 합성을 높여서 회계정보 이용자들의 의사결정을 위해 보다 유용한 정보를 제공해준다고 설명한다. 만약 이런 주장이 사실이라면, 공표된 회계정보를 이용하여 기업의 미래를 예측하는 일을 수행하는 재무분석가가 자산재평가 실시 이후 보다 정확하고 편의가 적은 예측을 수행할 수 있을 것이다. 본 연구에서는 이런 예측을 실증자료를 이용하여 분석하였다. 분석 결과는 다음과 같이 요약된다. 첫째, 자산재평가를 실시한 기업과 실시하지 않은 기업들사이를 비교하면, 자산재평가를 실시하기 이전 기간에는 재무분석가가 발표한 이익예측치의 편의나 오차가 양 기업들 사이에 유의적인 차이가 없었다. 둘째, 자산재평가를 실시한 이후 기간을 비교해 보면, 역시 자산재평가를 실시한 기업과 실시하지 않은 기업들 사이에 재무분석가의 이익예측치의 편의나 오차가 차이가 없었다. 셋째, 전체 기간을 대상으로 이중차분법을 이용한 분석에서 자산재평가 실시기업이 재평가 이후에 이익예측치의 편의나 오차에 변동이 있었는지 살펴본 결과 유의한 차이가 없었다. 이러한 발견은 자산재평가가 재무분석가가 발표하는 이익 예측치의 편의나 오차의 정도로 살펴본 회계정보의 유용성에 유의한 영향을 미치지 못했다는 것을 의미한다. 본 연구는 회계정보 이용자 측면에서 살펴본 자산재평가를 통해 제공되는 회계 정보에 대한 유용성을 살펴보았다는 측면에서 중요한 공헌을 하고 있다.

Asset revaluation (hereafter AR) is the process of increasing or decreasing the carrying amount (value) of assets to account for major changes in fair market value of the assets. AR was introduced in Korea after the Korean government announced on November 2007 the plan to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) starting from 2009. As a part of the pre-adoption processes of IFRS, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), which is the equivalent to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, allowed AR starting from 2008. As a result, several companies voluntarily chose to revaluate their assets during 2008 and 2009, before the formal adoption of IFRS. Before this, assets were normally recorded in financial statements using the cost method, which records the value of the assets at their historical cost less accumulated depreciation and accumulated impairment losses. In such a case, there is no upward adjustment to the recorded value due to changing circumstances. In contrast, the AR allows both increase and decrease of the carrying amount of assets following the change of the fair market value of the assets. AR has both pros and cons. The cost method provides more reliable but less relevant accounting information. In contrast, AR allows firms to choose what to revaluate and thus firms may choose AR for its opportunistic purpose. In addition, there are many assets for which the fair market value is not clearly measurable. However, the revaluated accounting information is more relevant for investors` decision-making regarding value estimation. As a result, the accounting information after AR becomes more relevant but less reliable. In summary, it is not clear if the advantages of AR dominate the disadvantages or vice versa. We try to tackle this issue in this study by focusing on analysts` use of financial statement information. Financial analysts use accounting information reported in financial statements. If financial statements prepared after AR are more useful than those prepared under the cost method, then the financial analysts should provide more accurate and less biased earnings forecasts. It is because higher-quality financial statement information allows financial statement users to predict the future more clearly (Behn et al. 2009; Feng et al. 2009). As a result, the quality of the decision of the information users needs to be improved if AR provides more useful information. We empirically examine this prediction using financial analysts` earnings forecasts and investigate if the forecast accuracy and bias changes as a result of the AR. Using 1,341 firm-year observations, we empirically examine these issues. Our empirical results are summarized as follows. First, we divide the total sample into two groups based on actual engagement of the AR (i.e., firms engaged in asset revaluation and firms that are not). We fail to find any significant differences in analyst forecast error and bias between these two groups, in both the pre-revaluation period (year 2007 and 2008) and the post-evaluation period (year 2009 and 2010). This finding suggests that the two groups of firms are not significantly different in characteristics of analysts` forecasts before AR, as well as after AR. Second, using a difference-indifference methodology, we fail to find any changes in the effect of AR from pre- to post-revaluation periods. In summary, these findings suggest that analyst forecast error and bias do not differ between firms that revaluate assets and other firms that do not engage in AR. In contrast to this finding, a prior study of Choe and Son (2011) reports that firms engaged in AR show less optimistic and more accurate earings forecasts. We try to reconcile these differences. We find similar results as those in Choe and Son (2011) if we include interaction terms between AR dummy and leverage ratio. The results documented in this study suggest that the decreased reliability of the information after AR may offset the increased relevance of the accounting information. As a result, there are no significant changes in the usefulness of financial statement information. These findings provide valuable implications for regulators, academics, analysts, and investors. This study is limited to the analyst forecast view only, and future research may extend this view and look into this issue in more detail.