The Bright Side of Discretionary Accruals: Evidence from Finance and Innovation
研究发现，面临融资约束但有创新机会的企业，可通过自由裁量应计项目向市场传递前景信息，从而获得更多股权融资，进而增加研发投入、专利产出和未来业绩。
We find cross-sectional evidence that a financially constrained firm with patentable innovation opportunities can use discretionary accruals to reveal information about the firm's prospects and facilitate its financing activities. Specifically, using firms with patents in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) patent database, we find that among financially constrained firms, higher discretionary accruals are associated with more capital being raised, greater research and development (R&D) expenditures, more patents, more patent citations, and better operating performance in the future. These positive relationships are driven by firms that raise equity capital, especially those that raise equity capital from employees.