We examine whether requiring (IFRS) versus allowing (UK GAAP) conditional capitalisation of development expenditure affects the extent to which capitalisation conveys more information about future earnings, relative to expensing. We show that capitalisation results in current returns incorporating more future earnings information than expensing under UK GAAP but not under IFRS. i.e., the amount of information incorporated into market prices of capitalisers is the same as that from firms expensing R&D under IFRS. This result holds irrespective of a firm’s earnings management incentives or strength of corporate governance for the period under IFRS. We argue that this is because investors experience greater uncertainty regarding the realisation of future economic benefits associated with the development costs capitalised in the post-IFRS period. Consistent with this, we do find a positive association between capitalised R&D and future earnings variability in the post-IFRS period only, as well as short-term positive abnormal returns for capitalisers relative to expensers in the pre-IFRS period only. Overall, these findings suggest that when moving away from a standard that offers an overt option to capitalise or expense, capitalisation comes with greater uncertainty, which is resolved only in the long term.

我们研究了要求 (IFRS) 与允许 (UK GAAP) 开发支出的有条件资本化是否会影响资本化传达有关未来收益的更多信息（相对于支出）的程度。我们表明，与 UK GAAP 下而非 IFRS 下的费用化相比，资本化导致当前回报包含更多的未来收益信息。即，纳入资本化者市场价格的信息量与根据 IFRS 进行研发费用的公司的信息量相同。无论在 IFRS 下公司的盈余管理激励措施或公司治理强度如何，这一结果都成立。我们认为，这是因为投资者在实现与后 IFRS 时期资本化的开发成本相关的未来经济利益方面面临更大的不确定性。与此一致，我们确实发现资本化研发与仅在 IFRS 之后期间的未来收益可变性之间存在正相关关系，并且仅在 IFRS 之前期间资本化者相对于支出者的短期正异常回报。总体而言，这些发现表明，当远离提供公开资本化或费用选择的标准时，资本化会带来更大的不确定性，而这种不确定性只能在长期内解决。