Experiments, Investor expectation, Abnormal performance index, Residual analysis

The disclosure of corporate forecasts of projected annual earnings was a topic of intensive debate within the investment community during the years 1970-75. Questions of accuracy, objectivity, independent certification, and investment utility were examined from a number of theoretic and pragmatic viewpoints.' Most of these inquiries appear to assume that an investor's beliefs and/or actions may be affected by the disclosure of a management forecast, and several explore the possible rewards and sanctions that a firm may experience as a result of forecast accuracy. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesized information content of management forecasts through the examination of the common stock price behavior which accompanied the voluntary disclosure of 336 forecasts of annual earnings per share during the years 1963-67. The results reported here indicate that these forecast disclosures were accompanied by significant price adjustments, from which the inference may be drawn that either the data presented in a management forecast, the act of voluntary disclosure, or both, convey information to investors.

This case study examines in detail the changes that were induced in a modem cost accounting system by the introduction and evolution of Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing. it is intended to do more problem finding than problem solving, in the hope of stimulating the formulation of hypotheses for further study. The project initially sought to detect whether Hewlett-Packard's JIT manufacturing experience had spawned new approaches to cost accounting or had uncovered fundamental weaknesses in traditional procedures. The most promising research opportunities to emerge, however, concern the changing relations between cost accounting, product design, process control, and quality assurance.

[This case study examines in detail the changes that were induced in a modern cost accounting system by the introduction and evolution of Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing. It is intended to do more problem finding than problem solving, in the hope of stimulating the formulation of hypotheses for further study. The project initially sought to detect whether Hewlett-Packard's JIT manufacturing experience had spawned new approaches to cost accounting or had uncovered fundamental weaknesses in traditional procedures. The most promising research opportunities to emerge, however, concern the changing relations between cost accounting, product design, process control, and quality assurance.]

James M. Patell, Mark A. Wolfson, The Ex Ante and Ex Post Price Effects of Quarterly Earnings Announcements Reflected in Option and Stock Prices, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 434-458

This paper examines the effects of Broad Tape news releases of earnings and dividend announcements on three aspects of intraday stock price behavior: mean returns, return variance, and serial correlation in consecutive price changes. The initial price reaction is evident in the first pair of price changes following the release (i.e., within a few minutes, at most). The returns earned by simple trading rules dissipate within five to ten minutes, although significant returns are detected in the overnight period and at the opening of trading on the next day. Disturbances in the variance and serial correlation persist for several hours and extend into the following trading day. As a class, dividend announcements induce much less activity than do earnings, although the response to dividend changes is comparable to the earnings announcement effect.

This study examines firms' behavior with respect to the systematic intraday timing of earnings and dividend announcements. In particular, it tests the hypothesis that good news is more likely to be released when the security markets are open while bad news appears more frequently after the close of trading. Both endogenous (stock price change) and exogenous (comparison to the preceding period's earnings or dividends) classifications are used to distinguish good news from bad, and both forms support the "good news during, bad news after" hypothesis. An information content analysis using daily stock price data is then performed to illustrate how differences in disclosure timing may affect inferences about the magnitude of stock price response, announcement anticipation or news leakage, and the speed of price adjustment.

M. Laurentius Marais, James M. Patell, Mark A. Wolfson, The Experimental Design of Classification Models: An Application of Recursive Partitioning and Bootstrapping to Commercial Bank Loan Classifications, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 22, Studies on Current Econometric Issues in Accounting Research (1984), pp. 87-114

Experiments, Private value of information, Abnormal performance index, Residual analysis