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Eficencia contractual y señalización a través de la elección contable: El caso de la revalorizacón de activos en España Juan Monterrey Mayoral, Carmen Pineda González and Amparo Sánchez Segura
This paper analyzes the economic determinants of the voluntary revaluation of assets by Spanish companies, within the framework of the Royal Decree 7/1996, of June 13th. The study focuses on an accounting decision that combines discretionary components with several others which are strictly regulated, as companies could voluntarily decide whether or not to revaluate their assets, but were not free to decide when or how to do it. The restatement was allowed for a specific period and according to a certain method. Therefore, it was not possible to introduce value estimates in the process. Consequently, this represents an excellent scenario to assess the extent to which the revaluation decision may be explained by the classical theories of accounting choice. Results from univariate tests reveal that asset revaluations were aimed both, at increasing contracting efficiency and, at signaling future profitability. Multivariate tests intended to identify the factors that jointly explain the revaluation decision show that, after controlling for uncertainty, companies restating their balance sheets were those with the higher profitability in subsequent periods, even though the decision is conditioned by the existence of proprietary costs. We found no evidence that political costs, tax savings or leverage have explanatory power for the revaluation decision. Our results are robust to alternative functional specifications and statistical tests. We provide evidence that the quality of earnings is higher in companies restating their fixed assets both, in terms of persistence and in that they use accounting discretion less opportunistically.

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