Income smoothing and use of derivatives instruments in non-financial companies listed on BM&FBovespa

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate whether income smoothing and use of derivative financial instruments are related as substitute or complementary practices regarding organizational policies to reduce the volatility of corporate earnings. In order to reach this goal, 214 non-financial companies listed on BM&FBOVESPA stock exchange between 2005 and 2011were analyzed and Eckel (1981) model was applied in order to gather which companies present income smoothing evidences during this period, besides qualitative analysis on explanatory notes to investigate which companies used derivatives in the final year. Chi-square test with Yates correction was employed in order to verify the existence of correlations between income smoothing and derivative instruments. Results indicated, considering the impossibility of rejecting the null hypothesis of the chi-square test with Yates correction, evidence for an inverse relationship between the aforementioned variables. Through the results of this test, it is suggested that organizational policies for use of income smoothing and derivatives can be acting as resource substitutes for non-financial enterprises stock dealers on BM&FBOVESPA, thus meeting individual findings in other international researches.

Keywords

• Gerenciamento de resultados
• Alisamento de resultados
• Instrumentos financeiros derivativos