Knowledge that Transforms

We survey research on banks׳ financial accounting. After providing a brief background of the theoretical models and accounting and regulatory institutions underlying the bank accounting literature, we review three streams of empirical research. Specifically we review studies associating bank financial reporting with the valuation and risk assessments, associating bank financial reporting discretion with regulatory capital and earnings management, and examining banks’ economic decisions under differing accounting regimes. We discuss what we have already learned and about what else we would like to know. We also discuss methodological challenges associated with predicting the effects of alternative accounting and regulatory capital regimes.

Prior studies attribute the turn-of-the-year effect whereby small capitalization stocks earn unusually high returns in early January to tax-loss-selling by individual investors and window-dressing by institutional investors. My results suggest that a significant portion of the effect on turn-of-the-year returns that prior studies attribute to window-dressing is actually attributable to tax-loss-selling by institutional investors. Among small capitalization stocks, I find that institutional investors with strong tax incentives and weak window-dressing incentives realize significantly more losses in the fourth quarter than in the first three quarters of the calendar year, and that their fourth quarter realized losses have a significant impact on turn-of-the-year returns. A one percentage point change in these institutional investors' fourth quarter realized losses scaled by a firm's market capitalization results in an increase of 47 basis points in the firm's average daily return over the first three trading days of January, which represents a 46 percent change for the mean firm.

Tax evasion has been an important issue in the accounting literature for several decades, but the focus has been on corporate income taxes. We develop a new way to examine tax evasion that focuses on corporate transactions, rather than corporate profits. Specifically, we examine how commodity flows respond to destination sales taxes, allowing for tax evasion as a function of distance between trade partners. After accounting for transportation costs, we find that the effect of taxes decreases as distance increases. This is consistent with the notion that longer distances between trade partners hinder government oversight and increase the likelihood of successful tax evasion. Our results are robust with respect to outliers, strategic neighbor effects, information sharing agreements and other re-specifications. These results are important to policymakers because they evidence the difficulty of enforcing destination taxation in open economies such as U.S. states and the European Union.

The properties of earnings have changed dramatically over the past 40 years. Prior studies interpret this trend as a decline in earnings quality but disagree on whether it results from changes in the real economy or changes in accounting standards. I find that each new cohort of listed firms exhibits lower earnings quality than its predecessors, mainly because of higher intangible intensity. I conclude that the trend of decline in earnings quality is due more to changes in the sample of firms than to changes in generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or in the earnings quality of previously listed firms.

I examine the short- and long-term impact of the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) on cross-listed foreign private issuers. Both short- and long-term test results suggest that the costs of SOX compliance significantly exceed its benefits and reduce the net benefits of cross-listings.

We outline a systematic approach to incorporate macroeconomic information into firm level forecasting from the perspective of an equity investor. Using a global sample of 198,315 firm-years over the 1998–2010 time period, we find that combining firm level exposures to countries (via geographic segment data) with forecasts of country level performance, is able to generate superior forecasts for firm fundamentals. This result is particularly evident for purely domestic firms. We further find that this forecasting benefit is associated with future excess stock returns. These relations are stronger after periods of higher dispersion in expected country level performance.

This study investigates whether an auditor's experience of litigation in the recent past affects subsequent financial reporting quality. At the audit firm level, we find accounting misstatements occur significantly less (more) often after audit firms are sued (not sued). At the audit office level, the negative association between past litigation and future misstatements is stronger for offices who were directly implicated in the litigation than for the non-accused offices of sued audit firms. Therefore, the litigation experiences of both audit firms and audit offices are incrementally significant predictors of future financial reporting quality.

A firm׳s investment in corporate social responsibility (CSR) builds a positive image of caring for social good and imposes additional costs on executives׳ informed trading, which is widely perceived self-serving. We thus expect executives of CSR-conscious firms to be more likely to refrain from informed trading. We find that executives of CSR-conscious firms profit significantly less from insider trades and are less likely to trade prior to future news than executives of non-CSR-conscious firms. The negative association between CSR and insider trading profits is more pronounced when executives׳ personal interests are more aligned with the interests of the firm.

In this study, I examine whether firms and executives with long-term political connections through contributions and lobbying incur lower costs from the enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I find that politically connected firms on average are less likely to be involved in SEC enforcement actions and face lower penalties if they are prosecuted by the SEC. Contributions to politicians in a strong position to put pressure on the SEC are more effective than others at reducing the probability of enforcement and penalties imposed by an enforcement action. Moreover, the amounts paid to lobbyists with prior employment links to the SEC, and the amounts spent on lobbying the SEC directly, are more effective than other lobbying expenditures at reducing enforcement costs faced by firms.