Dan Givoly, Dan Palmon, Classification of Convertible Debt As Common Stock Equivalents: Some Empirical Evidence on the Effects of APB Opinion 15, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 530-543
The paper examines the power and reliability of the differential timeliness (DT) measure developed by Basu (1997) to gauge reporting conservatism. We identify certain characteristics of the information environment unrelated to conservatism that affect the DT measure and find that it is sensitive to the degree of uniformity in the content of the news during the examined period, the types of events occurring in the period, and firms' disclosure policies. Our tests, based on both actual and simulated data, indicate that assessing the extent of reporting conservatism using this measure requires the recognition of, and control for, these characteristics. We also find that the difference in the timeliness of reporting bad versus good news is likely to be more pronounced than previously reported. Further, we provide additional evidence on the negative association between the DT measure and alternative aspects of conservatism, suggesting that the exclusive reliance on any single measure to assess the overall conservatism of a reporting regime (firms, countries, or time periods) is likely to lead to incorrect inferences.
Journal of Accounting and Economics200233(2), 173-204
This paper finds that firms that meet or beat current analysts’ earnings expectations (MBE) enjoy a higher return over the quarter than firms with similar quarterly earnings forecast errors that fail to meet these expectations. Further, such a premium to MBE, although somewhat smaller, exists in the cases where MBE is likely to have been achieved through earnings or expectations management. The findings also indicate that the premium to MBE is a leading indicator of future performance. This premium and its predictive ability are only marginally affected by whether the MBE is genuine or the result of earnings or expectations management.
While the theoretical relation between taxes and capital structure has been extensively analyzed, the empirical evidence on this issue has thus far been inconclusive. One of the main difficulties confronting previous empirical studies of the cross-sectional relationship between taxes and leverage was the control of intervening variables. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA), which drastically changed the tax regime, provides a unique opportunity to assess the interaction between taxes and leverage decisions in a controlled environment. We test the relationship between leverage and certain tax-related variables for a large sample of companies in the years surrounding the enactment of the TRA. The results support the tax-based theories of capital structure. The findings indicate that there exists a substitution effect between debt and nondebt tax shields, and that both corporate and personal tax rates affect leverage decisions.
Timeliness of annual reports is an important determinant of their usefulness. This study examines several aspects of the timeliness of earnings announcements which have implications for regulatory actions as well as for research design. The results show a considerable shortening of the reporting lag over the years. This implies that the assumption conveniently made in many "event studies" that the announcement week or month is fixed over the years is inappropriate and tends to weaken the power of the tests. The reporting lag of individual companies appears to be more related to intra-industry patterns and tradition than to company attributes. The ability of most companies to report welt ahead of the filing deadline coupled with the finding that bad news tends to be delayed might be considered in assessing the adequacy of the length of the current filing period. The price reaction to the disclosure of early earnings announcements was significantly more pronounced than the reaction to late announcements suggesting a decrease in the information content as the reporting lag increases.
This study examines properties of analysts' cash flow forecasts and compares them to those exhibited by analysts' earnings forecasts. Our results indicate that analysts' cash flow forecasts are less accurate than analysts' earnings forecasts and improve at a slower rate during the forecast period. Further, cash flow forecasts appear to be a nai¨ve extension of analysts' earnings forecasts, thus providing limited information on expected changes in working capital. We also find that analysts' forecasts of cash flows are of limited information content and are only weakly associated with stock returns. Finally, estimating expected accruals as the difference between analysts' earnings forecasts and their cash flow forecasts does not result in a better detection of earnings management than achieved by commonly used accrual models.