Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT We examine how informed trading activities affect the market reaction to accounting restatements. We find significantly less negative reactions to accounting restatements when managers are net purchasers of stock before the restatement, and significantly more negative market reactions when managers are net sellers. Similar patterns characterize corporate trading, where prior stock repurchases dampen negative reactions and prior equity issuances increase negative reactions to the restatement. We address the possibility of reverse causality in which informed trades are undertaken because of the expected market reaction by examining the difference between disclosed and non-disclosed trades, finding that the market reaction is concentrated in the disclosed trades. Our results are incremental to general return patterns associated with insider trading and corporate equity transactions, and hold after controlling for other determinants of the market reaction to restatements. Taken together, these findings suggest that investors use informed trading activities to help interpret and price accounting restatements. JEL Classifications: M41, M42. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from the sources identified in the study.

ABSTRACT Exploiting a natural experiment in which voluntary audits replace mandatory audits for U.K. private companies, we analyze whether imposing audits suppresses valuable information about the types of companies that would voluntarily choose to be audited. We control for the assurance benefits of auditing to isolate the role signaling plays by focusing on companies that are audited under both regimes. These companies experience no change in audit assurance, although they can now reveal for the first time their desire to be audited. We find that these companies attract upgrades to their credit ratings because they send a positive signal by submitting to an audit when this is no longer legally required. In contrast, companies that dispense with being audited suffer downgrades to their ratings because avoiding an audit sends a negative signal and removes its assurance value. Data Availability: All data are available from public sources.

ABSTRACT Under risk-based auditing, more (fewer) audit resources are allocated to accounts that are more (less) likely to be misstated. However, if auditors do not anticipate the strategic risk that arises when client managers anticipate auditors' risk-based resource allocations, undetected misstatements among ostensibly low-risk accounts could be more common than traditional risk assessment procedures suggest. Using a laboratory experiment, I find that participants assuming the auditor role in a stylized audit game do not naturally attune to strategic risks, but instead focus resources toward accounts with high non-strategic risk and away from ostensibly low-risk accounts. Manager-participants exploit these allocations by overriding the low-risk accounts more often than accounts with high non-strategic risk. However, auditor-participants who are asked to predict managers' expectations of, and responses to, audit resource allocations, devote additional resources to the low-risk accounts. These results are robust to the level of available audit resources.

ABSTRACT: This study investigates the spread of aggressive corporate tax reporting by modeling a firm’s decision to adopt the corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) shelter. Prior studies identify firm characteristics associated with aggressive tax reporting (Desai and Dharmapala 2006; Frank et al. 2009) and tax shelter participation (Wilson 2009; Lisowsky 2010). This study examines whether social environment factors explain the pattern of tax shelter adoption. Building on theory related to the diffusion of innovations and institutional isomorphism, I hypothesize direct and indirect ties between prior and potential shelter adopters influence the spread of shelter use. I find that network ties via board interlocks increase the likelihood of adopting the COLI shelter. I also find weak evidence that COLI use spreads geographically. However, I find no evidence that the spread of COLI use is concentrated among a particular set of audit firms or industries.

ABSTRACT: This study examines whether differences in proxies for audit quality between Big 4 and non-Big 4 audit firms could be a reflection of their respective clients’ characteristics. In our analyses, we use three audit-quality proxies—discretionary accruals, the ex ante cost-of-equity capital, and analyst forecast accuracy—and employ propensity-score and attribute-based matching models in attempt to control for differences in client characteristics between the two auditor groups while estimating the audit-quality effects. Using these matching models, we find that the effects of Big 4 auditors are insignificantly different from those of non-Big 4 auditors with respect to the three audit-quality proxies. Our results suggest that differences in these proxies between Big 4 and non-Big 4 auditors largely reflect client characteristics and, more specifically, client size. We caution the reader that this study has not resolved the question, although we hope that it encourages other researchers to explore alternative methodologies that separate client characteristics from audit-quality effects.

ABSTRACT We conduct three experiments to test if investors' views about fair value are contingent on whether the financial instrument in question is an asset or liability, whether fair values produce gains or losses, and whether the item will or will not be sold/settled soon. We draw on counterfactual reasoning theory from psychology, which suggests that these factors are likely to influence whether investors consider fair value as providing information about forgone opportunities. The latter, in turn, is predicted to influence investors' fair value relevance judgments. Results are generally supportive of the notion that judgments about the relevance of fair value are contingent. Attempts to influence investors' fair value relevance judgments by providing them with information about forgone opportunities are met with mixed success. In particular, our results are sensitive to the type of information provided and indicate the difficulty of overcoming investors' (apparent) strong beliefs about fair value. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

ABSTRACT: We provide evidence on the effects of SFAS 133 on the risk relevance of accounting measures of bank derivative exposures to bond markets. First, we find that interest rate derivatives classified as hedging are more negatively associated with fixed-rate bond spreads after SFAS 133. We also find that hedging derivatives offset non-trading positions to a greater extent after SFAS 133. Second, for the largest 25 banks, we find that interest and foreign exchange rate trading derivatives are more negatively associated with fixed-rate bond spreads after SFAS 133, consistent with more economic hedges being classified as trading after SFAS 133. For these banks, trading derivative exposures offset non-derivative trading exposures to a greater extent after SFAS 133. Our results suggest that, contrary to critics’ claims, SFAS 133 has increased the risk relevance of accounting measures of derivative exposures to bond investors and benefited banks in terms of reducing their cost of capital.

ABSTRACT In this study I examine how the degree and duration of overvaluation affect management's use of alternative within-GAAP earnings management, restrictions on further exploitation of within-GAAP accruals management, and subsequent non-GAAP earnings management. Further, I examine how one type of earnings management segues into another type as overvaluation persists. I present evidence that the longer the firm is overvalued, the greater is the amount of total earnings management. I also find that managers engage in accruals management in the early stages of overvaluation before moving to real transactions management, in order to sustain their overvalued equity. Finally, I find that the longer a firm is overvalued, the more likely it is to engage in one of the most egregious forms of earnings management, non-GAAP earnings management. Collectively, the results suggest that the duration of firm overvaluation is an important determinant of managements' choice of alternative earnings management mechanisms. JEL Classifications: M41, M43, M44. Data Availability: Data are available from sources identified in the text.

ABSTRACT: We examine detection and severity classification of internal control deficiencies (ICD) identified under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. While the cost/benefit balance of auditor testing of internal controls is highly controversial, prior research has not examined auditor versus client detection of ICD, nor has it examined factors auditors consider in judging ICD severity. We find that auditors detect about three-fourths of unremediated ICD, usually though control testing. This finding contrasts with extant research inferring control deficiency detection effectiveness from publicly available data, underscoring the value of Section 404 auditor testing in improving financial reporting quality. Auditors judge greater severity when a misstatement has already occurred. In the absence of a misstatement, severity is contingent on client and ICD characteristics, implying a more complex and nuanced judgment process without objective evidence of control failure. We also find that clients often underestimate ICD severity, but this tendency is lower among well-controlled companies with a well-designed Section 404 process.

ABSTRACT: This study re-examines the hypothesis that explicit, compensation-based incentives of mid-level managers are adjusted to the level of implicit incentives provided by the possibility of moving to higher-level positions. Using compensation data from a large multinational corporation, I find that, after controlling for the position’s scope and level of accountability, bonus-based incentives are stronger for managers who (1) have fewer organizational levels left to climb, (2) face weaker implicit incentives from getting promoted to the next level, and (3) face weaker implicit incentives from getting promoted to the top of the organization. The findings are consistent with the notion that implicit incentives are taken into consideration in the design of explicit incentive contracts. In particular, the results support the prediction that explicit incentives are optimally stronger in situations with weaker implicit incentives.