盈餘管理、經理人預測及分析師預測: 以中國為例

Abstract

本研究旨在探討中國上市公司是否以不同的盈餘管理方式操弄盈餘以避免達到強制經理人員預測門檻。分析師收集及分析公司資訊以提供予投資人參考。當分析師發布盈餘預測時，能否看穿公司操弄盈餘以避免達到強制預測門檻的行為，進而調整其盈餘預測，以反應真實資訊予投資人係一重要課題。因此，本研究檢視分析師盈餘預測錯誤與公司操弄盈餘以規避強制業績預告之關聯性。本研究亦檢視分析師追蹤人數對強制經理人員預測偏誤之影響。

本研究係以2010年至2012年中國上市公司為樣本，將強制業績預測門檻附近的公司視為潛在盈餘管理公司，並找配對公司進行比較。實證結果顯示，公司為避免強制業績預測，傾向操弄盈餘。此外，實證結果亦顯示分析師雖可以看穿公司使用裁決性應計項目操弄盈餘以避免強制預測，但卻無法看穿公司利用實質盈餘管理進行業外操弄。我們也發現當分析師追蹤人數增加時，經理人預測偏誤將減少。

The objective of this paper is to investigate whether firms manipulate reported earnings to avoid the threshold for mandatory management forecasts. Financial analysts are specialists in interpreting information about firms. Thus, we examine whether analysts discount appropriately for earnings management when they issue earnings forecasts for the firms. We also examine how analysts’ coverage affects the extent of management earnings forecast bias.

We collect management forecasts of earnings issued by Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2012. We find that firms which try to avoid mandatory management forecasts tend to manipulate earnings. These firms that manage earnings upward have unusual low cash flows from operations and unusual high net non-operating income. The empirical results indicate that analysts can see through firms use discretionary accruals to manipulate earnings upward to avoid mandatory forecasts. However, we do not find that analysts see through the real transaction earnings management. Furthermore, our results find that bias of management forecasts reduces when the number of analyst following increases.