This paper studies how bias in nonaccounting and in accounting information should be related. Bias in accounting information is modeled, as in some recent literature, as an alteration in the relative information content of accounting numbers. The optimal bias in one type of information is shown to be a complement of the bias in the other type. This result can be applied in various settings to explain a number of phenomena.

Discrete recognition is a long-standing and ubiquitous accounting practice, but it has been widely criticized for suppressing information and inducing accounting-motivated transactions. We study a model to examine the economic consequences of shifting away from discrete recognition to a continuous measurement approach. Without manipulation, discrete recognition is less informative than the continuous approach. However, the continuous regime induces more manipulation. The equilibrium informativeness is determined by both the accounting standard and endogenous manipulation. Discrete recognition is more informative than its continuous counterpart precisely when manipulation is a severe threat. We respond to the recent call in Kothari, Ramanna, and Skinner (2010) for using positive accounting theory to explain certain long-standing accounting practices. We also discuss the model's implications for fair value accounting.

This paper investigates banks’ reporting choices in the context of bank runs. A fundamental-based run imposes market discipline on insolvent banks, but a panic-based run closes banks that could have survived with better coordination among creditors. We augment a bank-run model with the bank’s reporting choices. We show that banks with intermediate fundamentals have stronger incentive to misreport than those in the two tails. Moreover, reporting discretion reduces panic-based runs, but excessive discretion also reduces fundamental-based runs. The optimal amount of reporting discretion increases in the bank’s vulnerability to panic-based runs. Finally, a given bank’s opportunistic use of reporting discretion exerts a negative externality on other banks. Our paper answers the call by Armstrong et al. (2016) and Bushman (2016) to understand better the effects of banks’ special features on their reporting choices.

We characterize the properties of optimal accounting rules in a signaling game. An impatient firm sells shares to competitive investors. The firm can signal its private information about the fundamental by retaining a fraction of the shares. In addition, the firm can commit to disclosing information according to a set of accounting rules chosen ex ante. Information disclosure reduces signaling cost so that perfect disclosure is optimal. When perfect disclosure is impossible, the optimal accounting rule features a lower bound and a summary statistic of the fundamental. The interpretation of the lower bound is consistent with accounting conservatism, and the statistic summarizes the information most relevant to the firm׳s valuation. The justification for accounting conservatism relies on the existence of information asymmetry and the infeasibility of perfect accounting disclosure. This is consistent with the conjecture of LaFond and Watts (2008) that information asymmetry calls for accounting conservatism.

We analytically study the economic consequences of the disclosure of managerial compensation contracts in a setting where two firms, by designing compensation contracts for their respective managers, compete for a new investment opportunity. Each manager is privately informed about her firm's profitability from this investment. We find that the disclosure leads to firms' emphasizing short-term stock performance in their managers' contracts. This, in turn, induces managers to signal favorable private information via myopic overinvestment, which deters rival firms' investments and gains their own firms a competitive edge. Nonetheless, such strategic use of compensation contracts is absent when the contracts are not disclosed; under this regime, equilibrium contracts only focus on long-term outcomes. Moreover, while disclosure-mandate-induced managerial myopia erodes firm profits, it may benefit consumer and social welfare. Our theory illuminates the economic consequences of the Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A) disclosure implemented in 2006.

Visionary CEOs have strong beliefs about the right course of action for their firms. How should a board of directors that does not necessarily share the visionary CEO's confidence advise and monitor the CEO? We consider a model in which the board can acquire costly information about the firm's optimal strategic direction. The board not only advises the CEO on strategy, but also must approve it, and the CEO exerts effort to implement the strategy. We find that the board gathers less information when the CEO believes more strongly in his vision. Further, depending on the strength of the CEO's belief bias, the board either plays an advisory role, a monitoring role, or a rubberstamping role. The model predicts that in firms that are led by highly visionary CEOs, boards are passive in that they acquire little information and rubberstamp the visionary's proposal. Nevertheless, shareholders prefer the visionary over an unbiased manager in industries in which obtaining information about the correct course of action is difficult and costly.

The adoption of common accounting standards generates both a precision effect and a network effect. When firms use common standards, investors can leverage their knowledge about the standards to process more financial reports. Embedding both effects into the economic framework of Baiman and Verrecchia (1995, 1996), we study the adoption’s effects on reporting precision, firm value, and liquidity of both the switcher and the early adopter. The model helps address the identification challenge and reconcile some existing results in the empirical literature on IFRS adoption. It also generates implications for standardizing disclosure and accounting methods.

We study the desirability of transparent accounting information for banks depending on their liability structure. In our model, a bank finances a long-term project with both uninsured and insured deposits. Although uninsured deposits increase rollover risk, they may also generate efficient liquidations. Importantly, a transparent regime provides timelier information about the project’s payoff than an opaque regime. We show that the transparent regime is surplus-enhancing when the amount of insured deposits is small, as the bank issues the optimal amount of uninsured deposits and transparency leads to efficient liquidations. Otherwise, when the amount of insured deposits is large, the cost of inefficient liquidations dominates, making the opaque regime optimal. In addition, the bank may favor transparency to reduce its funding cost even when it is surplus-decreasing. Overall, our results show that transparent accounting is not a panacea and provide some support for the “mark-to-funding” accounting rule.

We study voluntary cost disclosure by duopoly firms when they can invest in a cost-reduction technology, i.e., when their private cost is endogenously determined. We find that, contrary to most of the literature, firms disclose their endogenous cost information regardless of the type of competition. The underlying mechanisms and welfare implications, however, are different. Under Bertrand competition, cost disclosure helps a firm avoid aggressive investment in cost reduction to coordinate actions to the mutual advantage of the duopoly firms. Under Cournot competition, disclosing cost information enables a firm to show a hardened stance toward the competing firm. Although firms gain from their disclosure decisions under Bertrand competition, their disclosure decisions under Cournot competition place them in a prisoner’s dilemma, as both firms would be better off if they chose not to disclose their information. Consequently, consumers may lose under Bertrand competition but gain under Cournot competition.

We explicitly model financial reporting discretion and earnings management in an investment setting where managers have incentives to behave myopically. We show that when managers are sufficiently, but not excessively, myopic, granting them some discretion over the mandatory financial reports can lead to better investment decisions. This finding contrasts with the conventional argument that financial reporting discretion facilitates earnings management and exacerbates managerial myopia, leading to inefficient investments. Costly earnings management, while offering managers some ex post protection against bad luck by decreasing the incidence of low financial reports, reduces the expected net benefit of high financial reports ex ante. Consequently, managers with negative private information find it too costly to mimic those with positive private information, facilitating separation of managers through efficient investment. Thus, curbing managerial myopia by removing or overly restricting earnings management may have the unintended consequence of impairing investment efficiency.