上市公司信息披露与投资者信息获取的成本效益问卷调查分析

本文分别对上市公司信息披露的成本效益和投资者信息获取的成本效益网上问卷调查进行分析 ,结果表明 ,上市公司信息披露工作的费用呈逐年上升态势 ;投资者为获取公开信息所负担的费用较多 ,总体呈上升趋势 ;投资者普遍认为对投资决策极重要的公开信息项目有年度报告、利润分配及转增股本实施公告、首次发行或二次发行招股说明书及发行公告等。投资者认为最重要的定期报告项目是主要财务指标 (中报 )和会计数据和业务数据摘要 (年报 )、股本变动和 (主要 )股东 (持股 )情况以及财务报告。对机构投资者而言 ,其在作出投资决策时最关注的财务指标依次是上市公司成长性指标、盈利数量指标、盈利质量指标。而对偿债能力指标、资产状况指标、营运状况指标、现金流量指标和利润分配指标则关注程度不是很大。     

Timeliness of corporate and audit reports: Some empirical evidence in the French context

The issue of timeliness of financial reporting, an important qualitative characteristic of accounting information, has received much attention from regulatory and professional bodies in France in recent years. The increasing presence of international investors, particularly from the US, on the Paris Stock Exchange adds to the importance of this issue. The timeliness of corporate and audit reports in the French context is analyzed by examining the trend in reporting delay of companies, the effect that qualified reports have on the timeliness of corporate reporting, and the relationship between reporting behavior and types of audit reports over a 10-year period. The data are taken from more than 5000 annual reports of French publicly held companies for the years 1986-1995. These bear witness to an improvement in timeliness of corporate and audit reports. This improvement is greater for reports from consolidated accounts of groups than those from annual accounts of companies. There is also evidence that qualified audit opinions were released later than unqualified opinions and that, in general, the more serious the qualification, the greater the delay.     

Information Quality of Interim Financial Statements

Expressing concern about the Canadian capital market environment, Boritz (2006) suggested that the accounting and auditing profession may be paying limited attention to quarterly reports. This study investigates whether fourth‐quarter adjustments are significantly different from the previous three, thereby limiting the reliability or faithful representation of the firms' results for each quarter. This study includes four years (2003–2006) of quarterly financial information of 353 Canadian public companies. Our results indicate that the volatility of net income in each of the first three quarters is considerably lower than in the final quarter. While lower volatility can improve predictability, the resulting relevance may be limited. The low volatility of reported earnings in the first three quarters suggests that either earnings management is taking place or that management may not be exercising sufficient care at the end of each of the first three quarters on the measurements that generally accepted accounting principles call for and readers of financial statements expect. This could result in quarterly financial statements that do not faithfully represent the underlying resources and obligations of the reporting firms at the end of the quarter, or the firm's performance during the quarter. Our findings support Boritz's proposition for increased audit requirements for interim reports and changes in the approach to the annual audit to integrate it more closely with interim financial reporting.     

THE IMPACT OF THE DISCLOSURE OF EXTRAORDINARY ACCOUNTING ITEMS ON RETURNS TO EQUITY

This paper investigates empirically the impact on returns to equity of the disclosure of unexpected extraordinary accounting items, where unexpected extraordinary items are proxied by actual extraordinary items. The paper addresses some of the methodological limitations evident in previous studies. These limitations include the failure to identify the earliest information source, and the failure to identify the announcement month. The analysis in this study uses half-yearly reports instead of annual reports as used in previous studies, and identifies the month in which the interim results (and therefore the extraordinary items) are announced. Controls are provided for the contemporaneous announcement of operating profit and dividends, while interim reports with contemporaneously announced rights issues, bonus issues, share splits, or takeover offers, are excluded. However, one limitation which remains is the use of monthly returns. The use of daily data would provide a more sensitive test. Using cross-sectional regression analysis, no evidence was found of an association between announcements of unexpected extraordinary items and abnormal returns to equity.     

The quality of Neuer Markt quarterly reports—an empirical investigation

When compared with its prior performance, the year 2001 is not one of the best years for the Neuer Markt. The Neuer Markt's reputation has been marred by the practice of several companies on the exchange that have published misleading information in the form of incomplete annual and quarterly data. In this study, we examine the quality of Neuer Markt quarterly reports by concentrating on the disclosure level of 47 Neuer Markt companies' reports for the third quarter of 1999, 2000, and 2001. To enable making comparisons, we have established four disclosure indexes that measure each report's compliance with the Neuer Markt Rules and Regulations (NM Rules and Regulations) as well as with International Accounting Standards (IAS) and U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) interim reporting standards. We then attempt to find typical attributes of Neuer Markt enterprises that provide high or low level of disclosure accounting information in their quarterly reports. The results demonstrate that the level of disclosure has increased over time, partly in response to additional enforcement. In this regard, the quarterly reports standardization project of Deutsche Boerse is an important landmark in satisfying investors' information needs.     

分割资本市场下的会计信息价值研究

本文采用事件研究和面板数据回归方法对我国A股～H股双重上市公司境内外报表披露的会计盈余和帐面净值与股票超额收益的相关性进行了研究。分析表明,在A股市场上,境内报表披露的会计盈余等信息与A股超额收益之间没有显著的价值相关性;境内外报表关于会计盈余和账面净值的调整值对A股价格也没有影响;在H股市场,会计信息与股价之间的相关性较强,不仅境外报表披露的主要会计指标能够有效解释年报披露期间H股超额收益,而且境内外报表的会计盈余和账面净值调整值还具有增量信息价值。由此我们认为中国内地资本市场与香港资本市场的分割效应较为明显。     

The Use of a Statement of Changes in Financial Position to Interpret Financial Data: An Empirical Investigation

This study provides empirical evidence on the use of a statement of changes in financial position by financial analysts to interpret and make judgments on information contained in annual reports. Analysts were required to answer five questions developed from claims made in a professional accounting standard about the purpose of the statement of changes in financial position. The results indicate that the statement of changes in financial position does not generally enhance financial analysis.     

2002年沪市上市公司年报中的会计问题探析

本文揭示了 2 0 0 2年沪市上市公司年报中存在的三类较为普遍的会计问题 ,并重点选取了 2 0 0 2年年报中存在的四个特殊会计核算问题 ,基于会计理论和国际会计惯例进行了深度剖析。     

THE INFORMATION CONTENT OF ASX SUSPENSION THREAT ANNOUNCEMENTS

This paper presents an empirical investigation of share price returns for companies threatened with suspension by the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) for failing to either (1) pay their annual listing fees or (2) lodge a required report on time. The threatened companies experienced an average return over the event window that was significantly below the average return for both a market index and a similarly sized control portfolio. This suggests that the threat of suspension has information content. Interestingly, the major impact came from those companies that avoided suspension by lodging interim reports subsequent to the threat announcement indicating that significant new negative information was conveyed to the market in the week following the threat.     

我国上市公司公允价值信息的价值相关性——基于企业会计准则国际趋同背景的经验研究

本文对会计准则国际趋同后公允价值信息的价值相关性进行研究发现,我国上市公司与公允价值相关的信息具有一定的价值相关性,新会计准则对公允价值的引入在一定程度上提升了财务报告信息的信息含量,公允价值信息的价值相关性未明显受到金融危机的影响,同时本文针对研究结论和我国国情提出了政策建议。     

业绩快报的信息含量:经验证据与政策含义

业绩快报是上市公司2004年报披露中的一项制度创新。本文旨在研究业绩快报是否具有信息含量,以及业绩快报的披露是否会减少盈利公告的有用性。我们选取了2005年1月至4月间披露的70份2004年度业绩快报作为样本进行了实证研究。研究结果表明:业绩快报的披露提高了会计信息质量;业绩快报具有显著信息含量;业绩快报的披露并没有减少盈利公告的信息含量,是盈利公告的一种有益补充形式,值得提倡和推广。     

Extended performance reporting: an examination of the Australian mining industry

Recent accounting scandals and a greater focus on sustainable development have highlighted the insufficiency of traditional financial statements in providing information about company value and performance. This study argues for the importance of reporting both IC information and non-economic performance. Based on an Extended Performance Reporting Framework, content analysis was conducted to examine the voluntary reporting practices within the annual reports of selected Australian mining companies. Results show that the sample companies tended to place greater emphases on IC information than non-economic performance information. The study provides a research opportunity, examining why the samples chose to report or not report various reporting elements.     

The Relationship Between the Comprehensiveness of Corporate Annual Reports and Firm Characteristics in Spain

Not much information exists in the international accounting literature on Spanish accounting. Spain is selected as a subject of study because it is different from those countries that are subjects of the research concerned with investigating the multivariate impact of firm characteristics on disclosure in annual reports and accounts. The conceptual model underlying our empirical tests is based on economic and political incentives for providing greater detail in corporate annual reports and accounts. The paper provides evidence that the amount of detail in Spanish corporate annual reports and accounts is increasing in firm size and stock exchange listing, and decreasing in liquidity.     

Would Switching to Timely Reviews Delay Quarterly and Annual Earnings Releases?

The SEC recently issued a proposal to modernize and clarify the regulatory structure of securities offerings. The proposal would allow companies to access capital markets on an almost continuous basis but would require strengthening of the role of independent accountants and other gatekeepers in the registration process. The Commission is seeking comment on whether it should add to the proposed practices the fact than an independent accountant performed a timely review under SAS 71 of an issuer's quarterly financial information (SEC, 1998, p. 231). This is the most recent of several proposals, made by the SEC and others, that provides incentives for companies to purchase quarter-end (timely) reviews of their quarterly data. Some managers who currently have their quarterly earnings reviewed only at year-end (retrospective reviews) argue that having a timely review would delay interim earnings releases. Proponents of timely reviews deny that this would occur, and assert that shifting certain review procedures into interim periods would decrease the time needed to release annual earnings.We estimate the quarterly and annual reporting lags that would occur if companies currently selecting retrospective reviews switched to timely reviews. Our results indicate that quarterly earnings release lags would increase, as opponents of mandatory timely review have argued. Switching to timely review would reduce annual earnings release lags only when interim earnings contain unusual components.     

The information content of disaggregated accounting profitability: operating activities versus financing activities

This paper reports three empirical findings on the differential information content of the components of accounting profitability. First, the paper finds that the shareholder profitability driven by operating activities has a stronger association with annual stock returns than the shareholder profitability driven by financing activities. The finding provides empirical support for the FASB Financial Statement Presentation project, and the project suggests disaggregating accounting profitability into operating and financing activities. Second, the paper finds that the sustainable portion of operating profitability has a stronger association with annual stock returns than the unsustainable portion. This finding contributes to the literature by extending the two popular methods of breaking down operating profitability (DuPont analysis and operating liability leverage) into sustainable versus unsustainable operating income. Penman (Financial statement analysis and security valuation. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 2010) suggests disaggregating operating income into sustainable versus unsustainable operating income. Finally, the paper identifies the conditional persistence in Amir et al. (Rev Acc Stud 16:302–327, 2011) as one of the empirical attributes that affects the valuation usefulness of disaggregated accounting profitability. The conditional persistence measures the marginal contribution of disaggregated profitability to the persistence of aggregate profitability. This paper reports that the disaggregation is more useful in firms with significant differences in the conditional persistence of disaggregated components than in other firms. Test results are robust to controls for cross-sectional and time-series dependence in error terms.     

会计信息披露及时性的信息含量分析——基于2002—2004年中国上市公司年报数据的实证研究

“及时性”是一项重要的会计信息质量特征,一直以来是会计领域研究的重要范畴。本文依据中国深沪两市上市公司2002—2004年年报数据,以上市公司年报时滞作为及时性的替代变量,对中国上市公司会计信息披露及时性的信息含量问题进行实证分析。研究发现:早披露年报公司的市场反应显著强于晚披露公司,从而得出了及时性具有信息含量的肯定结论。     

Comparing numerical data and text information from annual reports using self-organizing maps

More and more companies provide their accounting information in electronic form today. The accounting information in electronic form can be found in large commercial databases or on the web. This information is of great interest for different stakeholders, i.e., stockholders, creditors, auditors, financial analysts, and management. For the stakeholders it is important to be able to extract both quantitative and qualitative information concerning the companies they are interested in. The annual reports contain information both in numerical and symbolic form. So far, only the numerical information has been analyzed with help of computers. However, technology has evolved and in particular neural networks in the form of self-organizing maps (SOMs) provide a new tool for analyzing also text information. In this paper, we compare results on quantitative data with results on qualitative data from annual reports. We use smart encoding, SOMs, and document histograms for comparing the performance of forest companies worldwide. Firstly, we cluster the companies according to, on the one hand, quantitative information, and on the other hand, qualitative information. Secondly, we compare the results produced by the clustering methods. Our results of the comparison show that there is a difference between the results.     

Raising Finance and Firms' Corporate Reporting Policies

The major purpose of a corporate annual report is to convey information about the company's affairs to outside parties. The information can be used both to monitor agency relationships (Jensen and Meckling [25]; Watts [32]) and to provide inputs into user decision models (e.g. Altman [3]). Until recently, however, very little research had been conducted into annual reports in the U.K. and hence little was known about their effectiveness. This has been remedied, to some extent, in the last few years and there is now a growing body of literature relating to annual reports. For example, the major professional British accounting bodies commissioned a study to examine'the scope and aims of published financial reports in the light of modern needs and conditions'. This resulted in the publication of The Corporate Report (ASSC [1]), a document which recommended a number of radical changes. Other studies have investigated the degree of understanding of annual reports by private shareholders (Lee and Tweedie [26]), the degree of consensus about the usefulness of annual report data (Firth [21]), the actual degree of disclosure by British companies (Firth [22, 23]), and the impact of accounting information on share prices (see Firth [20]).¹ The purpose of this paper is to add to the literature by reporting the results of an empirical study which examined one aspect of the corporate reporting policies of British firms, namely the changes in the quality and extent of voluntary financial disclosure when raising finance in the stock market.     

Are Private Sector Standards Enough? An Example From Public Sector Hospitals in New Zealand

The aim of this paper is to assess whether and to what extent public sector hospital reports in New Zealand disclose information which best support the public interest. We analyse the content of the annual reports of Crown Health Enterprises (CHEs) for 1994, 1995 and 1996. It is concluded that the developments in public sector accounting, with respect to the public interest, have not permeated these reports to any significant extent. The following changes would improve these reportings: Reports providing costs relative to non-financial accomplishments; removing the traditional 'revenue' disclosure; disclosing non-financial as well as financial resources and obligations; providing further disaggregation in the reports; disclosing budgetary information and valuing assets alternatively. Implications of the lens used for the analysis are also considered.     

利润操纵行为影响会计稳健性吗?——基于季度盈余不同汇总方法的经验证据

本文使用季度盈余的方法研究会计稳健性。以往文献主要使用会计年度(即公历年度)盈余分析我国上市公司的会计稳健性,相对无法有效地分离或控制利润操纵行为对会计稳健性的影响。本文使用不同的方法对季度盈余进行汇总,得到会计年度盈余及其他三种受利润操纵行为影响较弱的年度盈余。研究发现,我国上市公司的会计年度盈余和其他三种年度盈余都表现出了稳健性特征。这一经验证据表明,我国上市公司的报告盈余具有实质意义上的稳健性,利润操纵行为并未影响会计盈余的稳健性。