Restatement of Financial Statements and Cross-sectional Comparability: Moderating Effect of Managerial Defence Measures

Managers have an incentive to prepare financial statements as comparable to that of peer firms as possible regardless of their economic substance. Thus, in order to understand the implications of cross-sectional comparability of financial information, the quality of financial information itself should be taken into consideration. Using 2015-2018 Korean listed firms’ data, we investigate how the cross-sectional comparability of firms that have experienced the restatement of financial statements has changed before and after the restatement. Our findings reveal that the cross-sectional comparability of financial statements is significantly reduced for firms that have experienced financial statement restatement. Furthermore, we find that this aspect is more pronounced in firms with less antitakeover provisions. This may be due to the fact that managers in such firms have a great incentive to exert influence on the production of accounting information in order to preserve their positions. Collectively, our findings suggest that managers(especially those with less protected privileges) tend to distort accounting information to maintain the cross-sectional comparability at a desirable level. This study expands related research by confirming that financial reporting quality should be considered in evaluating the financial statements comparability.