美國會計準則ASC 730要求公司揭露研發費用。研發費用組成複雜,且準則未規定一致揭露形式,使公司對該支出之認定有自主裁量權。Koh and Reeb (2015) 證實部分公司(偽空白研發支出公司)無揭露研發資訊而有研發行動。然該研究未討論公司對未揭露支出之處理。為了解未揭露研發支出之公司是否存有費用移轉之情形,本研究探討未揭露研發支出之公司,分別與財務報表中未預期核心盈餘,費用項目之關聯性。本研究建立預期盈餘及費用模型,以2000年至2018年美國之公司為樣本,測試未預期項目與未揭露研發支出之公司之關聯性。結果顯示未揭露研發公司與未預期銷貨成本存有顯著關聯性,但與未預期銷管費用並未有顯著關聯。本研究認為未揭露研發支出之公司,傾向將研發支出移轉至銷貨成本中。
ASC 730 requires the disclosure of R&D expenses. The complicated composition and lack of consistent disclosure format leave firms discretion in R&D expenditure. Koh and Reeb (2015) proved that Pseudo-Blank R&D firms, with missing R&D expenses, still have innovation activities. They do not further explore where firms place these missing R&D outlays. The objective of this study is to investigate where the missing R&D expenses are classified in financial statements. We model expected core earnings, cost of goods sold, and selling, general and administrative expense. With US firms’ data from 2000-2018, we use unexpected terms (including core earnings, cost of goods sold, and selling, general and administrative expense) to examine the misclassification of R&D expenses to intangibles, COGS, or SG&A. We found that firms with missing R&D are positively associated with unexpected COGS, while missing R&D is not positively associated with change in intangibles and unexpected SG&A. We demonstrate that unexpected COGS contains a significant misclassification of R&D expenses, suggesting that Pseudo-Blank R&D firms are tend to misclassify R&D expenses to COGS.