Pożyczki od jednostek powiązanych a wygładzanie zysków przez polskie przedsiębiorstwa prywatne
Intra-group loans and earnings smoothing in Polish private firms

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to verify whether the financing of Polish private firms, often managed by owners, with the use of intra-group loans, decreases the propensity to earnings smoothing as a result of lower agency costs. Intra-group lenders play a dual stakeholder role, being both equity holders and creditors. We expect intra-group loans to mitigate agency problems of debt, because they reduce the need for debt covenants and earnings smoothing. Besides, the interest payments from these loans tend to lower payout volatility which reduces the need for dividend and earnings smoothing. With the use of OLS and propensity score matching we find that private firms financed by related entities exhibit significantly less earnings smoothing than other private firms. With a 10 percentage-point increase in such loans to total assets ratio, earnings smoothing decreases by ca. 15,9% of the mean value. We find evidence for the substitution effect between intra-group loans and income smoothing. We point out that private firms’ financial reporting responds to the needs of the stakeholders playing a dual role as lenders linked with borrowers (related entities).

• Details
• Contents