Knowledge that Transforms

We examine the “confirmation” hypothesis that audited financial reporting and disclosure of managers' private information are complements, because independent verification of outcomes disciplines and hence enhances disclosure credibility. Committing to higher audit fees (a measure of financial statement verification) is associated with management forecasts that are more frequent, specific, timely, accurate and informative to investors. Because private information disclosure and audited financial reporting are complements, their economic roles cannot be evaluated separately. Our evidence cautions against drawing inferences exclusively from market reactions around “announcement periods” because audited financial reporting indirectly affects information released at other times and through other channels.

This paper investigates why Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with strong political connections (i.e., politically connected firms) are more likely to list overseas than non-politically connected firms. We find that connected firms' post-overseas listing performance is worse than that of non-connected firms. This evidence suggests that connected firms' managers list their firms overseas for private (political) benefits. Consistent with this private benefits explanation, we further find that connected firms' managers are more likely to receive political media coverage or a promotion to a senior government position subsequent to overseas listing than domestic listing.

We show that the vast majority of investors ignore value-relevant accruals information when it is first released, but that investors who initiate trades of at least 5,000 shares tend to transact in the proper direction. These investors trade on accruals information only when the previously-announced earnings signal is non-negative. Unconditionally, those investors initiating the smallest trades appear to respond to accruals in the wrong direction, but further investigation suggests this behavior is explained by their attraction to attention-grabbing stocks. Finally, we find that those who trade on accruals information have insufficient market power to mitigate the accruals anomaly.

Prior literature portrays long-term growth (LTG) forecasts as nonsensical from a valuation perspective. Instead, we hypothesize that LTG forecasts signal high effort and ability to analyze firms' long-term prospects. We document stronger market response to stock recommendation revisions of analysts who publish accompanying LTG forecasts. We also hypothesize and find that these analysts are less likely to leave the profession or move to smaller brokerage houses. Consistent with Reg. FD's intention to promote fundamental analysis of long-term earnings prospects, post-Reg. FD observations drive our results. Overall, we identify previously undocumented benefits accruing to analysts who publish LTG forecasts.

Chan et al. (2012) find that voluntary adoption of compensation clawback provisions is followed by fewer financial restatements and fewer auditor reports of material internal control weaknesses, higher earnings response coefficients, and reduced auditing fees and lags. They conclude that voluntary adoption of clawback provisions leads to increased financial integrity. Based on these findings they suggest that U.S. government mandated clawback provisions will be effective in reducing material financial misstatements. I offer possible alternative interpretations of CCCY’s results and discuss issues surrounding government regulation of clawback provisions in particular and corporate behavior more generally.

Extant research commonly uses indicator variables for industry membership to proxy for securities litigation risk. We provide evidence on the construct validity of this measure by reporting on the predictive ability of alternative models of litigation risk. While the industry measure alone does a relatively poor job of predicting litigation, supplementing this variable with measures of firm characteristics (such as size, growth, and stock volatility) considerably improves predictive ability. Additional variables such as those that proxy for corporate governance quality and managerial opportunism do not add much to predictive ability and so do not meet the cost–benefit test for inclusion.

We examine the benefits and costs associated with foreign independent directors (FIDs) at U.S. corporations. We find that firms with FIDs make better cross-border acquisitions when the targets are from the home regions of FIDs. However, FIDs also display poor board meeting attendance records and are associated with a greater likelihood of intentional financial misreporting, higher CEO compensation, and a lower sensitivity of CEO turnover to performance. Finally, firms with FIDs exhibit significantly poorer performance, especially as their business presence in the FID's home region becomes less important.

This paper comprehensively reviews the Accounting for Income Taxes (AFIT) literature. We begin by identifying four distinctive aspects of AFIT and briefly covering the rules surrounding AFIT. We then review the existing studies in detail and offer suggestions for future research. We emphasize the research questions that have been addressed (most of which relate to whether the tax accounts are used to manage earnings and whether the tax accounts are priced by equity market participants). We also highlight areas that have not received much research attention and that warrant future analysis.

We examine whether Basu's (1997) differential timeliness metric and the related C-Score metric are effective in detecting predictable differences in conservatism surrounding corrections of overstated earnings. Cross-sectional and time-series analyses, employing 2132 firms making restatements during 1999–2005, suggest Basu-based metrics capture variation in conservatism. Further, we find that increases in conservatism following restatements are contingent on improvements in corporate governance. Collectively, these results provide evidence of the usefulness of the Basu-based metrics in the restatement setting.

Examining banks across 27 countries, we estimate two measures of the forward-looking orientation reflected in discretionary loan provisioning practices within a country. We document that forward-looking provisioning designed to smooth earnings dampens discipline over risk-taking, consistent with diminished transparency inhibiting outside monitoring. In contrast, forward-looking provisioning reflecting timely recognition of expected future loan losses is associated with enhanced risk-taking discipline. Thus, proposals to change loan loss accounting embed significant risks of unintended consequences, as gains from reducing pro-cyclicality may be swamped by losses in transparency that dampen market discipline and increase the scope for less prudent risk-taking by banks.