The Relationship of Accounting Conservatism and Investment Decisions of Managers

The goal of this study is investigating the relationship of accounting conservatism and investment decisions of managers. To measure accounting conservatism two proxies, the asymmetry in the recognition of good news versus bad news and market to book value ratio of stocks were used. Since investment decisions are not directly visible, In order to evaluate the benefits of conservatism in reducing agency problems associated with the investment decisions of managers, the proxies of profit margins and adjusted cash flows from operations were used. To test the research hypotheses, information from 99 (297 year-firm) audited financial statements during the period 1387-1389 were collected. Results from analysis of data show that the asymmetry in recognition is negatively associated with future profitability and this relationship is statistically significant. The other proxy of conservatism, stock market value to book value ratio is positively related to the profitability which is not statistically significant.