上場企業 環境情報 公示의 有用性에 관한 實證的 硏究

An empirical study on the usefulness of environmental accounting disclosure

According to the Korean Financial Accounting Standards revised in 1996, corporations are required to disclose environmental information as a footnote to the finanacial statements. The information includes the company’s environmental standards and policies, environment-related investments, energy consumption, and generation and treatment of by-products and scraps. This study aims to suggest how to improve the current environmental informaion disclosure by clarifying the following two issues of interests: First, to what extent do corporations actually disclose environmental information on their financial statements to meet the requirements of the Korean Financial Accounting Standards? Second, dose the environmental informaion disclosure provide useful information to the capital market? Key finding from this study are summarized as follows: First, in 1997, 24% of all companies listed with the Korean Stock Exchange disclosed environmental information. In 1998, the rate rose to 29%. Since the Korean Financial Accounting Standards do not provide specific guidelines for disclosing environmental informaion, thje disclosed contents are largely different across companies. Second, the capital market tends to respond to the disclosed environmental information in a negative direction. The results of regression analyses show that the regression coefficients for those that disclose environmental information turn out to be significantly negative in 1997, when the disclosure requirements is implemented for the first time. In 1998, however, it seems that the capital market is neutral to the disclosure of environmental information, presumably because the positive effect of accounting transparency offset the negative effect of the disclosure. In order to make the environmental informaion disclosure system more effective and useful, it is suggested that a uniform set of standards be prepared as guidelines to the disclosure. It would lead corporations to disclose consistently the required environmental information.