This article regresses the market value of equity on pre-depreciation income and on depreciation expense for capital-intensive firms, referring to the coefficients from our model as valuation weights. The valuation weight on depreciation expense versus the weight on pre-depreciation income are compared, to detect depreciation biases, over time and across sectors. Our model shows that the valuation weights on depreciation expense change over time, if the persistence of the cash flow components of net income varies over time and if the accrual for depreciation is inflexible (e.g., straight-line depreciation). For Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), we find the valuation weight on pre-depreciation income increases with industry upturns, while the valuation weight on depreciation expense decreases during upturns. This result is contrasted to the nearly equal valuation weights for the cash flow and depreciation components of earnings for Resource firms (e.g., mines) over time. We conjecture this is because depletion accounting flexibly allows for “depreciation” to exhibit less bias than in other sectors. In summary, actual depreciation practices influence time variation in the valuation of depreciation, a point which has been underappreciated in prior studies.

本文将资本密集型企业的折旧前收益和折旧费用的权益市场价值回归，将我们模型中的系数称为估值权重。将折旧费用的评估权重与折旧前收入的权重进行比较，以发现随时间推移和跨部门的折旧偏差。我们的模型表明，如果净收入的现金流量部分的持久性随时间变化并且折旧的应计额不灵活（例如，直线折旧），则折旧费用的评估权重会随时间而变化。对于房地产投资信托（REIT），我们发现折旧前收入的估值权重随行业好转而增加，而折旧费用的估值权重在行业好转时减小。该结果与资源公司（例如，矿山）的现金流量和收益的折旧部分的评估权重几乎相等。我们推测这是因为耗损核算灵活地允许“折旧”比其他部门显示出更少的偏差。总之，实际的折旧方法会影响折旧评估中的时间变化，这一点在先前的研究中并未得到充分重视。