Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Citation Andrew Bird, Stephen A. Karolyi; Governance and Taxes: Evidence from Regression Discontinuity (Retracted). The Accounting Review 1 January 2017; 92 (1): 29–50. https://doi.org/10.2308/accr-51520 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe Accounting Review Search Advanced Search

ABSTRACT A fundamental accounting question is whether investors perceive low risk when earnings are smooth relative to the volatility of operating cash flows. We conduct two experiments to examine this question. Absent additional information concerning the likelihood of earnings management, our first experiment finds that investors give managers the benefit of the doubt and perceive low risk when earnings are relatively smooth. Given this finding, our second experiment examines whether additional information that supports investors' suspicions of earnings management affects investors' risk judgments when earnings are relatively smooth. We find that investors no longer give managers the benefit of the doubt when additional information suggests that managers have either the opportunity or the incentive to report smooth earnings. Our study provides important insights to the literature concerning both “whether” and “when” relatively smooth earnings affect investors' risk judgments. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

ABSTRACT We provide new evidence about how analysts incorporate and improve on management ETR forecasts. Quarterly ETR reporting under the integral method provides mandatory point-estimate forecasts by management, but firms must record certain “discrete” tax items fully in the quarter in which they occur, polluting these forecasts. We investigate management ETR accuracy, analysts' decisions to mimic management's estimate, analysts' accuracy relative to each other or to management, and dispersion. Our comprehensive analysis reveals that analysts deviate from management more and are more accurate relative to management as complexity increases, with real effects on EPS accuracy and dispersion. In contrast to prior research that analysts ignore or are confused by taxes, we provide evidence that analysts pay attention to taxes and improve on management estimates. Based on our evidence that management's quarterly ETRs have less predictive value in the presence of discrete items, we suggest standard-setters reexamine the discrete item exception to require more disclosure.

ABSTRACT We test whether tax avoidance strategies are associated with greater firm risk. We find that low tax rates tend to be more persistent than high tax rates and that measures of tax avoidance commonly used in the literature are generally not associated with either future tax rate volatility or future overall firm risk. Our evidence suggests that, on average, corporate tax avoidance is accomplished using strategies that are persistent and do not increase firm risk. We also find that the volatility of cash tax rates is associated with future stock volatility, suggesting that tax rate volatility and overall firm risk are related. JEL Classifications: M41.

ABSTRACT We examine how the co-location of firms in the same industry affects analysts' cost of gathering and processing information. We find that when the firms in an analyst's portfolio are located farther away from other firms in the same industry, the analyst's portfolio size is smaller and average forecast accuracy is lower. We further find that the additional costs that analysts incur to follow distant firms are amplified when earnings are more difficult to forecast. Last, we provide some evidence that managers are more knowledgeable about other firms in the same geographic area. Specifically, managers are more likely to reference firms in their industry that are geographically closer during conference calls. This paper provides additional evidence that the co-location of firms in the same industry not only affects operating and strategic decisions (as documented in the existing literature), but also analysts' costs of gathering and analyzing information about the firm. JEL Classifications: D83; M40; M41; R10; R12.

ABSTRACT In this paper, we examine how CEO succession and succession planning affect perceptions of financial reporting risk among stakeholders who are responsible for and oversee firms' financial reporting (e.g., auditors, management, and audit committees). Management succession introduces uncertainty about firms' future operations, financial policies, and potential motivation for earnings management, which we predict elevates the perceived risk of financial reporting improprieties. Consistent with this prediction, we find that audit fees are higher for firms with new CEOs. Importantly, however, we note that careful CEO succession planning (i.e., promoting an “heir apparent”) attenuates perceptions of higher risk, as evidenced by a lack of an audit pricing adjustment. These results are robust to several alternative specifications and analyses designed to mitigate the concern that the association between audit fees and CEO succession and succession planning is driven by factors leading to the CEO change. We also show that audit fee increases dissipate over time as the new, non-heir CEO stays longer at the firm, reinforcing the inference that audit fees increase in response to the uncertainty surrounding a new CEO. Additionally, we do not find evidence of a deterioration in audit quality with new CEOs, independent of the succession plan. JEL Classifications: G30; M12; M41; M42.

ABSTRACT We classify all institutional investors that file Form 13-F over the period 1995–2013 as either “tax-sensitive” or “tax-insensitive” based on their trading behavior and portfolio characteristics. We examine tests of the effects of investor tax-sensitivity on portfolio rebalancing, price pressure, and fund performance, and compare our measure of tax-sensitive institutional investor ownership to three measures used in prior studies. We show that our measure of tax-sensitive investors dominates other measures in the portfolio rebalancing and price pressure tests. In the fund performance test, our measure of tax-sensitivity is the only one that finds that tax-sensitive investors have significantly lower returns on their portfolio stocks, which is a new result in the literature. JEL Classifications: G11; G20; H24.

ABSTRACT In this study, we examine whether sell-side security analysts gain access to value-relevant information through political connections. We measure analysts' political connections based on political contributions at the brokerage-house level. We argue that if brokerages are able to obtain private information through their political connections, then analysts at politically connected brokerages should issue more profitable stock recommendations, and this increased profitability should be more pronounced for politically sensitive stocks. Our evidence is consistent with these predictions. Analyses of recommendations issued surrounding the Affordable Care Act further support our main inferences. Moreover, our findings hold after we employ numerous tests to address correlated omitted variables and endogeneity. Collectively, these results suggest that brokerages obtain value-relevant, nonpublic information from their political connections. JEL Classifications: G24; G38; G14.

ABSTRACT We examine whether social ties between engagement auditors and audit committee members shape audit outcomes. Although these social ties can facilitate information transfer and help auditors alleviate management pressure to waive correction of detected misstatements, close interpersonal relations can undermine auditors' monitoring of the financial reporting process. We measure social ties by alma mater connections, professor-student bonding, and employment affiliation, and audit quality by the propensity to render modified audit opinions, financial reporting irregularities, and firm valuation. Our evidence implies that social ties between engagement auditors and audit committee members impair audit quality. In additional results consistent with expectations, we generally find that this relation is concentrated where social ties are more salient, or firm governance is relatively poor and agency conflicts are more severe. Implying reciprocity stemming from social networks, we also report some suggestive evidence that audit fees are higher in the presence of social ties between an engagement auditor and the audit committee. Collectively, our analysis lends support to the narrative that the negative implications—namely, worse audit quality and higher audit fees—of these social ties may outweigh the benefits.