Knowledge that Transforms

We examine whether executive stock options (ESOs) provide managers with incentives to invest in risky projects. For a sample of oil and gas producers, we examine whether the coefficient of variation of future cash flows from exploration activity (our proxy for exploration risk) increases with the sensitivity of the value of the CEO's options to stock return volatility (ESO risk incentives). Both ESO risk incentives and exploration risk are treated as endogenous variables by adopting a simultaneous equations approach. We find evidence that ESO risk incentives has a positive relation with future exploration risk taking. Additional tests indicate that ESO risk incentives exhibits a negative relation with oil price hedging in a system of equations where ESO risk incentives and hedging are allowed to be endogenously determined. Overall, our results are consistent with ESOs providing managers with incentives to mitigate risk-related incentive problems.

In this paper, we investigate whether budgets ratchet. Using business-unit data from a large multinational corporation, we find evidence consistent with ratcheting where favorable budget variances result in performance budget increases that are larger than decreases associated with unfavorable variances of the same magnitude. We argue that under ratcheting, the cost of reporting positive transitory earnings surprises outweigh the short-term benefits of the current-period bonus. Consequently, we hypothesize that managers make income-decreasing discretionary accruals to offset transitory earnings surprises beyond the level expected under fixed budgets. Using a proxy for transitory earnings surprise, we find evidence consistent with this hypothesis.

We investigate a pervasive voluntary disclosure practice—managers including balance sheets with quarterly earnings announcements. Consistent with expectations, we find that managers voluntarily disclose balance sheets when current earnings are relatively less informative, or when future earnings are relatively more uncertain. Specifically, balance sheet disclosures are more likely among firms: (1) in high technology industries; (2) reporting losses; (3) with larger forecast errors; (4) engaging in mergers or acquisitions; (5) that are younger; and (6) with more volatile stock returns. This is consistent with managers disclosing balance sheets in response to investor demand for value relevant information to supplement earnings.

We investigate how firms use differences in state income tax regimes to lower their state tax burdens. We develop a model that predicts that firms’ state effective tax rates first decrease then increase as a function of the number of states in which they file returns. Using firm-level data, we find evidence consistent with the model's predictions and we estimate that such rates are minimized at 24 states. Consistent with predictions from prior literature, our evidence also suggests that firms use sales factor apportionment to reduce state tax burdens.

This study examines whether audit committee and board characteristics are related to earnings management by the firm. A negative relation is found between audit committee independence and abnormal accruals. A negative relation is also found between board independence and abnormal accruals. Reductions in board or audit committee independence are accompanied by large increases in abnormal accruals. The most pronounced effects occur when either the board or the audit committee is comprised of a minority of outside directors. These results suggest that boards structured to be more independent of the CEO are more effective in monitoring the corporate financial accounting process.

This study examines the relations between earnings informativeness, measured by the earnings–return relation, and the ownership structure of 977 companies in seven East Asian economies. Our results are consistent with two complementary explanations. First, concentrated ownership and the associated pyramidal and cross-holding structures create agency conflicts between controlling owners and outside investors. Consequently, controlling owners are perceived to report accounting information for self-interested purposes, causing the reported earnings to lose credibility to outside investors. Second, concentrated ownership is associated with low earnings informativeness as ownership concentration prevents leakage of proprietary information about the firms’ rent-seeking activities.