Leone, Wu, and Zimmerman [Leone, A., Wu, J., Zimmerman, J., 2005. Asymmetric sensitivity of CEO cash compensation to stock returns. Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming] find that cash compensation (salary and bonus) is more sensitive to price decreases than to price increases. The authors interpret this result as consistent with Boards of Directors exercising discretion to reduce costly ex post settling up in cash compensation. I discuss potential alternative explanations. Specifically, the design of bonus contracts and the placement of the upper bound, and the effect of the Internal Revenue Code Section 162 (m) that limits the deductibility of cash compensation over one million dollars. I also link their results to the managerial power and rent extraction perspective.

This paper investigates circumstances under which accruals are predicted to improve earnings' ability to measure firm performance, as reflected in stock returns. The importance of accruals is hypothesized to increase (i) the shorter the performance measurement interval, (ii) the greater the volatility of the firm's working capital requirements and investment and financing activities, and (iii) the longer the firm's operating cycle. Under each of these circumstances, cash flows are predicted to suffer more severely from timing and matching problems that reduce their ability to reflect firm performance. The results of empirical tests are consistent with these predictions.

ABSTRACT I first distinguish the terms economic growth, economic development, and sustainable development. I then discuss the term ESG and why this term is used with respect to the corporation. I follow with a discussion of the shareholder primacy perspective and how this perspective plays a defining role in corporate law, corporate governance, and asset management. I argue that the shareholder primacy perspective is not appropriate for sustainability reporting because when a firm pollutes the environment, reduces biodiversity, or has inequitable social policies, it does not bear the full cost of its action; society and the planet does. Therefore, providing sustainability disclosures that are relevant to investors misses the point that sustainability disclosures are motivated by the desire of other stakeholders to learn about externalities. I discuss the different standard setters in the sustainability space and how accounting and measurement play key roles. I close with a discussion of research opportunities. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from sources indicated in the text. JEL Classifications: K22; L21; M41; M48; Q56; Q58.

ABSTRACT: Relative to recording securitizations as collateralized borrowings, the “gain on sale” treatment has several accounting benefits such as reducing leverage, increasing earnings, and improving efficiency. We investigate whether managers engage in real transaction management to take advantages of these benefits. We predict that in order to maximize financial statement window-dressing, managers will engage in securitizations toward the end of the quarter. We find that 41 percent of the quarter's transactions occur in the third month of the quarter and almost half of these occur in the last five days of the quarter. In addition, we show that when firms report securitization gains sufficient to beat earnings thresholds, the securitization transactions are more likely to have occurred in the last five days of the quarter. We also document that the impact of securitizations on leverage is large and material for many firms. Our results suggest that window-dressing the financial statements appears to be a valuable side-benefit of engaging in securitization transactions.

[This paper evaluates alternative accrual-based models for detecting earnings management. The evaluation compares the specification and power of commonly used test statistics across the measures of discretionary accruals generated by the models and provides the following major insights. First, all of the models appear well specified when applied to a random sample of firm-years. Second, the models all generate tests of low power for earnings management of economically plausible magnitudes (e.g., one to five percent of total assets). Third, all models reject the null hypothesis of no earnings management at rates exceeding the specified test-levels when applied to samples of firms with extreme financial performance. This result highlights the importance of controlling for financial performance when investigating earnings management stimuli that are correlated with financial performance. Finally, a modified version of the model developed by Jones (1991) exhibits the most power in detecting earnings management.]

[Top executives' compensation contracts typically provide for annual incentive awards that link executives' cash compensation and reported earnings. This link has been confirmed empirically by Lambert and Larcker (1987), who document a positive association between the cash compensation of chief executive officers (CEOs) and their firms' contemporaneous earnings performance. The widespread use of earnings-based incentives has prompted concerns that executives may select real decisions and accounting procedures to maximize their earnings-based compensation, irrespective of the impact on the economic well-being of the firm (Kaplan and Atkinson 1989, 724; Watts and Zimmerman 1986, 204). These concerns presume that the earnings-based performance measures specified in compensation contracts are strictly adhered to in setting executive compensation. In practice, however, these plans are administered by compensation committees, who could adjust compensation to prevent executives from engaging in opportunistic behavior. Existing research provides mixed evidence as to whether compensation committees adjust earnings-based compensation. For example, Abdel-khalik (1985) finds evidence that CEO compensation is adjusted in response to accounting procedure changes. In contrast, Healy et al. (1987) find no evidence that CEO compensation is adjusted for the effects of accounting procedure changes on reported earnings. This study provides evidence suggesting that compensation committees do adjust earnings-based incentive compensation. It documents reliable and systematic evidence that CEOs' cash compensation is adjusted for restructuring charges. We investigate a sample of 182 restructuring charges taken by 91 Fortune 500 firms between 1982 and 1989. The short-term incentive plans of the sample firms do not include explicit provisions for restructuring charges to be excluded from the definition of earnings used to determine executives' incentive compensation. The empirical analysis, however, indicates that CEO cash compensation is shielded from restructuring charges relative to other components of earnings. The results also suggest that the degree to which executive compensation is adjusted for a restructuring charge depends on the characteristics of the restructuring. Our evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that compensation committees systematically override the provisions of incentive plans to avoid providing executives with incentives to behave opportunistically. Restructurings typically require a large charge to earnings but can have a positive impact on the economic well-being of a firm. By adjusting executive compensation for restructuring charges, the compensation committee ensures that executives are not deterred from undertaking value-enhancing restructurings.]

A model of earnings, cash flows and accruals is developed assuming a random walk sales process, variable and fixed costs, and that the only accruals are accounts receivable and payable, and inventory. The model implies earnings better predict future operating cash flows than current operating cash flows and the difference varies with the operating cash cycle. Also, the model is used to predict serial and cross-correlations of each firm's series. The implications and predictions are tested on a 1337 firm sample over 1963–1992. Both earnings and cash flow forecast implications and correlation predictions are generally consistent with the data.

This paper investigates the hypothesis that CEOs in their final years of office manage discretionary investment expenditures to improve short-term earnings performance. We examine the behavior of R & D expenditures for a sample of firms in industries that have significant ongoing R & D activities. The results suggest that CEOs spend less on R & D during their final years in office. However, we find the reductions in R & D expenditures are mitigated through CEO stock ownership. There is no evidence that the reduced R & D expenditures are associated with either poor firm performance or reductions in investment expenditures that are capitalized for accounting purposes.