Effects of conditional conservatism due to economic crisis on the investiment of brazilian public firms

This research aimed to identify the influence of accounting conservatism on the level of investments by traded companies due to the Brazilian economic crisis of 2014-2017. The research was based on an empirical analysis through the collection of information on non-financial public firms, listed in Brazil, Bolsa, Balcão (B3), during the period of 2010 to 2018. Basu model was adjusted to measure the effect of the Brazilian economic crisis on the conditional conservatism of firms. Then, using that model, the influence of the companies’ accounting conservatism level on investments in Property, Plant, and Equipment (PP&E) was verified. The results indicate that in periods of local economic crisis, companies anticipate future losses by increasing the level of conservatism. This behavior, however, was not able to mitigate the effects of the crisis that negatively influenced the level of investments in PP&E made by Brazilian companies. In addition, it has been observed that more conservative companies significantly reduce their investments in crisis times. These findings become relevant to investors as they may consider more conservative behavior in firms’ future investments. It is also worth mentioning that the results of the research can help government policies in the sense that public managers seek actions that enable companies to invest, minimizing the negative effects of the crisis and allowing faster economic growth.