本研究主要探討公司之盈餘管理行為是否對信用評等造成影響。由於管理當局與外部投資者間存在資訊不對稱,因而使管理當局有誘因從事盈餘管理行為以窗飾會計數字,進而影響盈餘品質,然而,信用評等機構亦為財務資訊使用者之一方,在評定公司信用評等的過程需要大量仰賴會計資料,故本文欲探討信評機構是否能自會計資訊中汲取公司實質營運績效的寶貴訊息,並將其反映於應有的信評水準上。本研究以台灣2004年至2009年一般產業之上市櫃公司為研究對象,利用Modified Jones Model中裁決性應計數絕對值衡量盈餘管理程度,而以台灣經濟新報社(TEJ)的台灣企業信用風險指標(TCRI)為被解釋變數進行Ordered Probit迴歸分析。實證結果發現企業採用裁決性應計數的幅度愈大,會使得信用評等愈差,故顯示信用評等機構在評估企業信用風險的過程中,能偵測到企業操縱盈餘之意圖,而給予較差的信用評等。此外,本文更進一步把裁決性應計數分為正數與負數兩組,分別檢測其對TCRI的影響,實證結果發現企業採向上的盈餘管理對信用評等有負面影響,而向下的盈餘管理則對信用評等有正面效果。
This study explores whether earnings management has an effect on credit rating. Due to asymmetric information between managers and outside investors, earnings may be managed for window dressing and then earnings quality may be impacted. Credit rating institutions are also financial information users and need plenty of accounting data during rating. This study therefore tries to investigate whether rating institutions can obtain the essential message of company’s real performance from accounting information and accordingly reflect it on the suitable level of credit rating.This study selects general industry firms publicly traded in Taiwan from 2004 to 2009 as samples and adopts absolute discretionary accruals under the Modified Jones Model to measure the degree of earnings management. Besides, this study adopts Taiwan Corporate Credit Risk Index(TCRI)obtained from Taiwan Economic Journal(TEJ)as dependent variables to run ordered probit regression. The empirical results show that the higher the discretionary accruals, the poorer the credit rating will be. Consequently, rating institutions have the ability to detect the intention of earnings management during rating and accordingly reflect a poorer score for the company. Furthermore, this study divides the discretionary accruals by positive value and negative value to separately detect their influence on TCRI. The empirical results show that earning-increasing management has negative effect on credit rating but earning-decreasing management has positive effect on credit rating.