1,721,129 research outputs found
International differences in the timeliness, conservatism, and classification of earnings
No full textWe analyze differences in the timeliness of income recognition between the U.S. and U.K. GAAP financial reporting regimes. Building on previous work in the area we focus on the links between current reported earnings and current and past changes in market value. In the light of Basu [1997] we present a formal model in which
the response of reported earnings to changes in market value varies according to whether the value change is good news or bad. This model yields a number of insights with regard to the definition and measurement of earnings conservatism. We also report evidence indicating that controlling for cross-jurisdictional classification differences affects comparisons of earnings timeliness and earnings conservatism; specifically, we find that apparent differences in conservatism between the U.S. and
U.K. accounting regimes are sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of extraordinary items in U.K. accounting earnings
Discussion of Disclosure Practices, Enforcement of Accounting Standards, and Analysts' Forecast Accuracy: An International Study
No full textDiscussion of O-K. Hope "Disclosure Practices, Enforcement of Accounting Standards, and Analysts' Forecast Accuracy: An International Study
Common factors in default risk across countries and industries
No full textGlobal economic crises appear to strongly affect corporate bankruptcy rates. However, several prior studies indicate that changes in default risk are strongly negatively related to equity returns, which in turn depend predominately on country-specific factors. This suggests that country effects – and not global effects – should dominate changes in default risk. To analyse this issue, we decompose changes in default risk, changes in the fundamental determinants of default risk and equity returns into global, country and industry effects. We proxy for default risk through Merton (1974) default risk estimates and CDS rates. Our evidence reveals that changes in default risk always depend most strongly on global and industry effects. However, the magnitude of country effects in equity returns correlates positively with economic stability, rendering it dependent on the sample period. Our results have implications for the management of credit-sensitive securities
Do tenure-based voting rights help mitigate the family firm control-growth dilemma?
Full text linkInvestment growth in family firms is constrained by family preferences to retain corporate control, which limits outside equity issuance and increases the expropriation risk perceived by external minority shareholders. Tenure-based voting rights (TVRs) weaken the link between voting rights and cash flow rights, facilitating new equity capital issuance without loss of control. We find that publicly listed family firms in Italy adopt TVRs to facilitate the continuation of investment growth while retaining family control. We also find that in family firms with fragile control, investment increases after TVR adoption. Our results indicate that control-enhancing mechanisms such as TVRs can help resolve the control–growth dilemma in family firms
Macroeconomic risks and characteristic-based factor models.
Full text linkWe show that book-to-market, size, and momentum capture cross-sectional variation in exposures to a broad set of macroeconomic factors identified in the prior literature as potentially important for pricing equities. The factors considered include innovations in economic growth expectations, inflation, the aggregate survival probability, the term structure of interest rates, and the exchange rate. Factor mimicking portfolios constructed on the basis of book-to-market, size, and momentum therefore, serve as proxy composite macroeconomic risk factors. Conditional and unconditional cross-sectional asset pricing tests indicate that most of the macroeconomic factors considered are priced. The performance of an asset pricing model based on the macroeconomic factors is comparable to the performance of the Fama and French (1993) model. However, the momentum factor is found to contain incremental information for asset pricing
Real Options Models of the Firm, Capacity Overhang, and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns
Full text linkWe use a stochastic frontier model to obtain a stock-level estimate of the difference between a firm's installed production capacity and its optimal capacity. We show that this “capacity overhang” estimate relates significantly negatively to the cross-section of stock returns, even when controlling for popular pricing factors. The negative relation persists among small and large stocks, stocks with more or less reversible investments, and in good and bad economic states. Capacity overhang helps explain momentum and profitability anomalies, but not value and investment anomalies. Our evidence supports real options models of the firm featuring valuable divestment options
Are international accounting standards more credit relevant than domestic standards?
Full text linkWe examine whether the credit relevance of financial statements, defined as the ability of accounting numbers to explain credit ratings, is higher after firms are required to report under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We find an improvement in credit relevance for firms in 17 countries after mandatory IFRS reporting is introduced in 2005; this increase is higher than that reported for a matched sample of US firms. The increase in credit relevance is particularly pronounced for higher risk speculative-grade issuers, where accounting information is predicted to be more important; and for IFRS adopters with large first-time reconciliations, where the impact of IFRS is expected to be greater. These tests provide reassurance that the overall enhancement in estimated credit relevance is driven by accounting changes related to IFRS adoption. Our results suggest that credit rating analysts’ views of economic fundamentals are more closely aligned with IFRS numbers, and that analysts anticipate at least some of the effects of the IFRS transition
Mandatory IFRS adoption and institutional investment decisions
No full textWe examine whether the mandatory introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards leads to an increase in institutional investor demand for equities. Using a large ownership database covering all types of institutional investors from around the world, we find that institutional holdings increase for mandatory IFRS adopters. Changes in holdings are concentrated around first-time annual reporting events. Second, we document that the positive IFRS effects on institutional holdings are concentrated among investors whose orientation and styles suggest they are most likely to benefit from higher quality financial statements, including active, value, and growth investors. These results are consistent with holdings changes being associated with the financial reporting regime change. Finally, we show that increased institutional holdings are concentrated in countries in which enforcement and reporting incentives are strongest, and where the differences between local GAAP and IFRS are relatively high. Overall, our study helps shed new light on the channels by which IFRS information becomes impounded in market outcomes
Forecasting risk in earnings
Full text linkConventional measures of risk in earnings based on historical standard deviation require long time series data and are inadequate when the distribution of earnings deviates from normality. We introduce a methodology based on current fundamentals and quantile regression to forecast risk reflected in the shape of the distribution of future earnings. We derive measures of dispersion, asymmetry and tail risk in future earnings using quantile forecasts as inputs. Our analysis shows that a parsimonious model based on accruals, cash flow, special items and a loss indicator can predict the shape of the distribution of earnings with reasonable power. We provide evidence that out-of-sample quantile-based risk forecasts explain incrementally analysts’ equity and credit risk ratings, future return volatility, corporate bond spreads and analyst-based measures of future earnings uncertainty. Our study provides insights into the relations between earnings components and risk in future earnings. It also introduces risk measures that will be useful for participants in both the equity and credit markets
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