Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT Firms frequently attempt to increase profits by replacing some existing workers with new lower-wage workers. However, this strategy may be ineffective in an incomplete-contract environment because the new workers may provide lower effort in response to their lower wages, and hiring new lower-wage workers may damage the remaining original workers' reciprocal relationship with the firm. We conduct an experiment to examine this issue and find that when new lower-wage workers become available, firms hire them to replace original higher-wage workers and pay the new workers lower wages. However, these lower wages do not improve firm profit because the decision to hire new lower-wage workers causes both the new and remaining workers to provide lower effort. Moreover, hiring lower-wage workers reduces new workers' payoffs and, thus, decreases social welfare. These unintended consequences suggest that firms should consider both the wage savings and the potential costs when deciding whether to replace some workers with new lower-wage workers. We discuss the implications of our findings for contract design, hiring practices, and managerial accountants.

ABSTRACT This paper extends prior literature on cost behavior by providing insights into how firms achieve changes to cost structure in response to two important risk drivers, i.e., demand uncertainty and financial risk. Using theory from labor economics, supply-chain management, and finance, we posit that demand uncertainty and financial risk influence cost management activities. Specifically, we argue that firms are likely to alter resource procurement choices to increase cost elasticity in response to these two risk drivers. We use data from California hospitals that allow for the calibration of three distinct resource procurement choices that increase cost elasticity: outsourcing, leasing of equipment, and hiring contract labor. Mediation analysis using 2,202 hospital year observations indicates that both demand uncertainty and financial risk influence cost elasticity. Importantly, these effects are mediated by the three aforementioned resource procurement choices. Overall, our findings support the view that firms make procurement choices to manage the risk associated with cost structures. Data Availability: Data used in this study are publicly available from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (see: http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/). JEL Classifications: I18; M41.

ABSTRACT Psychopathy is characterized by deficits of conscience and empathy, and is measurable in nonclinical populations. It is one of the “Dark Triad” of personality variables, but has received minimal attention in accounting literature, despite obvious implications for fraud. In the practice of empirical research, two sides of the “Fraud Triangle,” motive and opportunity, are in place, awaiting only rationalization. For one high on the psychopathy scale, rationalization of fraud is easy or moot. Widespread fraud exists in scientific research, and studies indicate that accounting is not exempt. I hypothesize and find a positive effect of psychopathy on article publication count in leading accounting journals, mediated by individuals' greater acceptance of unethical acts in research and publication. Participants are 546 North American accounting faculty who have published in accounting research journals, who are lower on the psychopathy scale than previous samples from other populations. Policy and research implications are discussed.

ABSTRACT: We conduct two experiments to investigate how readability (high versus low) and benchmark performance consistency (consistent versus inconsistent) influence investors' judgments. Using prior management guidance and year-ago quarter performance as two benchmarks against which to assess actual earnings performance, we manipulate whether the valence of guidance performance (positive or negative) and the valence of trend performance (positive or negative) are consistent with each other. We also manipulate the readability of trend performance in our main experiment. Our results show that when benchmark performance is inconsistent, higher as opposed to lower readability of positive (negative) trend performance leads to more (less) favorable investors' performance judgments. This effect of readability is smaller when benchmark performance is consistent. We also show that higher readability in the inconsistent benchmark performance condition improves investors' understanding of the firm's current-quarter performance, which in turn influences their judgments on the firm's future performance. In a supplementary experiment, we manipulate the readability of guidance performance in an inconsistent benchmark performance setting, and replicate the key finding that higher readability of positive guidance performance leads to more positive judgment on the firm's future performance.

ABSTRACT Prior archival studies find that firms that voluntarily adopted clawback policies have experienced a reduction in restatements. I experimentally examine this outcome by investigating the influence of two key factors (i.e., executive compensation structure and auditor quality) on financial reporting executives' (hereafter, “executives”) decision-making regarding a proposed restatement that will lead to a clawback of their incentives. I find that executives (i.e., CFOs, controllers, and treasurers) facing a lower quality auditor are less likely to agree with amending prior financial statements when a higher proportion of their pay is incentive-based. However, this tendency is reduced when executives face a higher quality auditor, indicating that higher quality auditors can act as effective monitors. My results identify an ex post unintended consequence of clawback regulation that could at least partially offset the benefits of the ex ante deterrent effects of clawbacks, and that could contribute to findings of less frequent restatements when clawback policies are in place. I discuss potential implications regarding the role of executives during restatement decisions and auditors' risk assessments in a clawback environment. Data Availability: Data are available from the author upon request.

ABSTRACT This study examines the unintended effects of a pre-Reg FD practice that gave a broad group of sophisticated market participants 15-minute earlier access to all corporate press releases than the general public. We find that roughly one-eighth of the price discovery to earnings announcements issued during regular trading hours was due to privileged access to information in earnings press releases, with the 15-minute priority dissemination contributing to just over 50 percent of price discovery from all privileged access. In addition, we find that transient institutions benefited from priority dissemination, especially when the earnings contained good news. Finally, consistent with economic theory, we find that intraday bid-ask spreads decreased post-Reg FD for firms that had sufficient market liquidity to allow trading opportunities during the 15-minute window. Our study has implications for current discussions on whether preferential information distribution by firms and information intermediaries creates an uneven playing field among investors. Data Availability: The data used in this study are available from the public sources identified in the paper JEL Classifications: D82; G14; K22; M45.

ABSTRACT We investigate whether ineffective internal control over financial reporting has implications for firm operations by examining the association between inventory-related material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting and firms' inventory management. We find that firms with inventory-related material weaknesses have systematically lower inventory turnover ratios and are more likely to report inventory impairments relative to firms with effective internal control over financial reporting. We also find that inventory turnover rates increase for firms that remediate material weaknesses related to inventory tracking. Remediating firms also experience increases in sales, gross profit, and operating cash flows. Finally, we assess the generalizability of our findings by examining all material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting, regardless of type, and provide evidence that firms' returns on assets are associated with both their existence and remediation. Collectively, our findings support the general hypothesis that internal control over financial reporting has an economically significant effect on firm operations.

ABSTRACT We examine how strategic trade affects expected returns in a large economy. In our model, both a monopolist (strategic) informed trader and uninformed traders consider the impact of their demands on prices. In contrast to settings with price-taking traders, private information never eliminates a priced risk, and can lead to higher risk premiums. Also unlike settings with price-taking informed traders, risk premiums decrease in response to an increase in liquidity-motivated trades in diversified portfolios. These differing effects arise because a privately informed strategic trader conceals her trades by taking small positions relative to the magnitude of noise trades. Although prices partially reveal her information and reduce uncertainty, a concomitant decrease in her risk absorption dominates and leads to higher risk premiums. Similar to settings with price-taking traders, private information affects expected returns only via factor loadings and risk premiums on existing payoff risks—it introduces no new priced risks, and factor loadings (betas) explain all cross-sectional differences in expected returns.

ABSTRACT We empirically test whether audit quality is affected when part of an SEC issuer's audit is outsourced to auditors other than the principal auditor (“participating auditors”). We find a significantly negative market reaction and a significant decline in earnings response coefficients (ERCs) for experimental issuers disclosed for the first time as having participating auditors involved in their audits. However, we find no market reaction and no decline in ERCs for a matching sample of issuers that are not disclosed as using participating auditors, nor for issuers disclosed for the second or third time as using participating auditors. We also find actual audit quality as measured by absolute value of performance-matched discretionary accruals is lower for the experimental issuers, although we find no difference in audit fees paid by the experimental and matching issuers in a multivariate model. Our findings suggest that the PCAOB's proposed rule requiring disclosure of the use of other auditors in addition to the principal auditor would provide information useful to investors in assessing audit quality for SEC issuers.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of textual disclosures in the Management, Discussion, and Analysis (MD&A) section of a firm's SEC 10-K filing in predicting a firm's ability to continue as a going concern. Using a sample of firms that filed for bankruptcy between 1995 and 2012 to identify firms that cease as a going concern, we find that both management's opinion about going concern reported in the MD&A and the linguistic tone of the MD&A together provide significant explanatory power in predicting whether a firm will cease as a going concern. Moreover, the predictive ability of MD&A disclosure is incremental to financial ratios, market-based variables, and even the auditor's going concern opinion. We also find that the incremental predictive ability of MD&A disclosures extends to three years prior to bankruptcy.