Investigation the association between conservatism and investment efficiency with respect to firm’s financing status and ultimate ownership in Tehran Stock Exchange Market

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine both the relationship between accounting conservatism and level of investment under the need or no need of financing conditions and the impact of ultimate ownership on this association. The statistical society of the present research contains 103 companies selecting from all companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange using removal method over the time span of 2006-2010. Combined data method with fixed effect has been used in order to test the research hypothesis. The result depicts that the association between conservatism and investment is significantly negative when a firm do not need external financing. Nonetheless, this association is significantly positive in companies which need external financing. Furthermore, we find that the relationship between conservatism and investment in the companies whose ultimate ownerships controller is governmental or semi governmental firms is significantly negative. Thus, when the agency problem is enhancing, conservatism acts as a mechanism to decrease this problem and engenders reduction in investment cost.

Keywords

• conservatism
• investment efficiency
• ultimate ownership
• information asymmetry
• agency costs