Knowledge that Transforms

We propose a parsimonious stochastic model of reported earnings that links misreporting to performance shocks. Our main analytical prediction is that misreporting leads to a negative second-order autocorrelation in the residuals from a regression of current earnings on lagged earnings. We also propose a stylized dynamic model of earnings manipulation and demonstrate that both earnings smoothing and target-beating considerations result in the same predictions of negative second-order autocorrelations. Empirically, we find that the distribution of this measure is asymmetric around zero with 27% of the firms having significantly negative estimates. Using this measure, we specify a methodology to estimate the intensity of misreporting and to create estimates of unmanipulated earnings. Our estimates of unmanipulated earnings are more correlated with contemporaneous returns and have higher volatility than reported earnings. With respect to economic magnitude, we find that, in absolute terms, median misreporting is 0.7% of total assets. Moreover, firms in our sample subject to SEC AAERs have significantly higher estimates of manipulation intensity.

This paper examines whether firms that deviate from an empirically modeled (“expected”) credit rating engage in earnings management activities, as measured by abnormal accruals and real activities earnings management. We find evidence that firms use income-increasing (-decreasing) earnings management activities when they are below (above) their expected ratings. We then test whether such actions are successful in helping these firms move toward their expected credit ratings. The results suggest that firms below or above their expected credit ratings may be able to move toward expected ratings through the use of directional earnings management.

In recent years, reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) became mandatory in many countries. The capital-market effects around this change have been extensively studied, but their sources are not yet well understood. This study aims to distinguish between several potential explanations for the observed capital-market effects. We find that, across all countries, mandatory IFRS reporting had little impact on liquidity. The liquidity effects around IFRS introduction are concentrated in the European Union (EU) and limited to five EU countries that concurrently made substantive changes in reporting enforcement. There is little evidence of liquidity benefits in IFRS countries without substantive enforcement changes even when they have strong legal and regulatory systems. Moreover, we find similar liquidity effects for firms that experience enforcement changes but do not concurrently switch to IFRS. Thus, changes in reporting enforcement or (unobserved) factors associated with these changes play a critical role for the observed liquidity benefits after mandatory IFRS adoption. In contrast, the change in accounting standards seems to have had little effect on market liquidity.

During the late 1990s, the SEC alleged that banks were overstating loan loss allowances to establish cookie jar reserves. Their intervention in bank accounting culminated in 2001 with new guidance (SAB 102) designed to improve financial reporting quality. We show that banks' allowance estimation changed in response to the SEC's intervention. While allowance informativeness (as proxied by the ability to explain future losses) improved for Strong Banks, informativeness declined for Weak Banks whose incentives are to understate allowances. Our results help to explain why some (Weak) banks delayed loss recognition during the recent financial crisis.

This paper investigates whether executives who evidence a propensity for personal tax evasion (suspect executives) are associated with tax sheltering at the firm level. I adapt recent research to identify the presence of these executives and examine associations between suspect executive presence and firm-level measures of tax sheltering. The results indicate that the presence of suspect executives is positively associated with proxies for corporate tax sheltering. In addition, firm-years with suspect executive presence have significantly higher cash tax savings relative to firm-years without suspect executive presence. I also investigate the firm value implications of suspect executive presence and find that increases in tax sheltering are incrementally more valuable for firms that have suspect executives than similar increments made by firms that do not have suspect executives.

We examine a duopolistic setting in which firms can preannounce their future competitive decisions before they actually implement them. We show that there is a unique equilibrium in which both firms preannounce and overstate their future actions when uncertainty of demand is low. We find that firms choose higher real actions than the ones they would choose in the absence of preannouncements. Moreover, the real actions of both firms are single-peaked functions of their credibility. In a Cournot market, firms face a prisoner's dilemma in which preannouncing lowers firms' profits. If firms could commit not to preannounce, they would remain silent. In a Bertrand market, firms overstate their future actions to foster collusion.

This study tests the relation between corporate tax avoidance and disclosure of geographic earnings for U.S. multinational companies. We find that after the adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131 in 1998, firms opting to discontinue disclosure of geographic earnings in their financial reports have lower worldwide effective tax rates. These results are consistent with managers perceiving that non-disclosure of geographic earnings helps mask tax avoidance behavior. However, the relation between tax avoidance and non-disclosure reduces after implementation of Schedule M-3 in the annual corporate tax filing beginning in 2004. Schedule M-3 requires a detailed reconciliation of book income to tax income and aims to make firms' tax avoidance activities associated with shifting profits to lower-tax foreign jurisdictions more apparent to the IRS. This study contributes to our understanding of the relation between financial reporting behavior and tax reporting behavior.

This paper examines the association between ineffective internal control over financial reporting and the profitability of insider trading. We predict and find that the profitability of insider trading is significantly greater in firms disclosing material weaknesses in internal control relative to firms with effective control. The positive association is present in the years leading up to the disclosure of material weaknesses, but disappears after remediation of the internal control problems. We find insider trading profitability is even greater when insiders are more likely to act in their own self-interest as indicated by auditors’ weak “tone at the top” adverse internal control opinions and this incremental profitability is driven by insider selling. Our research identifies a new setting where shareholders are most at risk for wealth transfers via insider trading and highlights market consequences of weak “tone at the top”.

Using a sample of long-term supply contracts collected from SEC filings, I show that hold-up concerns and information asymmetry are important determinants of contract design. Asymmetric information between buyers and suppliers leads to shorter term contracts. However, when longer duration contracts facilitate the exchange of relationship specific assets, the parties substitute short-term contracts with financial covenants in order to reduce moral hazard. Covenant restrictions are more prevalent when direct monitoring is costly and the products exchanged are highly specific. Finally, I find that buyers and suppliers are less likely to rely on financial covenants when financial statement reliability is low.

We use survey responses from 2,901 corporate insiders to assess the costs and benefits of compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The majority of respondents recognize compliance benefits, but they do not perceive these benefits to outweigh the costs, on average. This is particularly true among smaller companies where the start-up costs are proportionately larger. However, the perceived efficiency of compliance increases with auditor attestations, years of compliance experience, and after the remediation of a material weakness. Notably, the perceived effects of compliance depend largely on firm complexity, but are mostly unrelated to firm governance structure.