盈餘是公司經營績效的表現，是投資者、債權人等評估公司繼續經營及衡量違約風險的重要指標。若公司盈餘波動程度越高，投資人及債權人認為其風險越高。本研究以2013至2019年台灣上市櫃公司為樣本，探討企業管理階層是否憑藉其較佳的能力做出盈餘平穩的決策，以平緩盈餘波動，並透過盈餘平穩傳遞公司相關資訊，降低資訊不對稱，因而降低債務資金成本。本研究以教育程度作為管理階層能力的代理變數，實證結果顯示，能力較高的管理階層較不會透過盈餘平穩來傳遞公司私有資訊，進行盈餘管理操弄。此外，本研究發現債務資金成本與盈餘平穩並無顯著關聯，究其原因可能債權人對管理階層試圖透過平穩盈餘隱匿資訊的疑慮增加，因此削弱了降低資訊不對稱以達到減低債務資金成本的效果。

Earnings is the performance of the enterprise’s operating performance, and it is an important indicator for investors, creditors, etc. to evaluate the enterprise’s going concern and measure the risk of default. A Firm is expected to be risker while its earnings volatility increases. Investigating listed companies in Taiwan from 2013 to 2019, this study explores whether able managers are more likely to engage in income smoothing. If able managers use income smoothing to convey firm-specific information, information asymmetry between managers and creditors decreases. Therefore, this study expects that firms with more income smoothing have lower cost of debt. Taking educational level as a proxy variable of management’s ability, empirical results show that management with higher ability is less likely to conduct earnings management through income smoothing. In addition, this study finds that the cost of debt is not significantly related to income smoothing. The reason may be that creditors are increasingly suspicious of management’s attempts to hide information through income smoothing, thus weakening the effect of reducing information asymmetries on cost of debt.

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