The Effects of Accounting Restatements on Firms Growth

Abstract

The studies in Iran and many other countries indicated that a high percentage of companies annually restate their financial statements. This implies that accounting information in many companies is questionable, regarding the feature of reliability. This may harm the relationships between companies and their external clients/stakeholders, especially the investors, and may affect firms' cash flow and, finally, firms' growth. This study investigates the impact of financial restatements on firms' growth. The study takes the Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovics model, and uses internal growth rate (IG), short-term growth rate (SFG) and maximum sustainable growth rate (SG) to measure firms' growth. The statistical population of this study is the companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange, and 66 company-years within a period of 14 years from 1999 to 2012 were examined. The results indicated that financial restatements in announcement time lacks effective informational value and does not have effect on firms' growth.

Keywords

• financial restatements
• annual adjustments
• firm growth
• reliability of financial information