Does the financial analysts' usage of non-financial information influence the analysts' forecast accuracy? Some evidence from the Belgian sell-side financial analyst

This paper examines whether the use of non-financial information by sell-side financial analysts influences the accuracy of analysts’ forecasts. The research findings, based on a survey of Belgian financial analysts, suggest that financial analysts who use more forward-looking information and more internal-structure information offer more accurate forecasts. Furthermore, the listed Belgian firms examined in this study have improved their non-financial information reporting over time. However, neither the frequency nor the quantity of non-financial information mentioned by financial analysts in their reports appears to have increased over time.     

The Impact of Corporate Governance on the Financial Outcomes of Global Diversification

The tenets of agency theory suggest that: 1) managers may pursue investment strategies that are at odds with shareholder value, and 2) effective governance mechanisms can improve the quality of managerial decision-making and enhance the outcomes of corporate investment. Accordingly, using an agency theory lens, we hypothesize that the financial outcomes of global diversification are contingent on the quality of the multinational firm’s corporate governance: high (poor) quality corporate governance is associated with positive (negative) financial consequences attributable to global diversification. Using a sample of 5985 firm-year observations over the period 2002 through 2006, we find support for our hypothesis. The results are robust to using three different measures of global diversification, three different measures of financial outcomes (one accounting-based and two market-based measures), and two econometric methods to control for the endogeneity of the diversification decision.     

The impact of governance reform on performance and transparency

This study examines the influence of Mexico’s efforts to improve corporate governance on firm performance and transparency. We utilize compliance data from the Code of ‘Best’ Corporate Practices, disclosed annually by public firms in Mexico, as a measure of corporate governance strength. We document a significant increase in compliance over 2000–2004 indicating Mexican companies view non-compliance as costly. However, we find no association between the governance index and firm performance, nor is there a relation with transparency. Instead, we find firms with greater compliance resort to the more costly mechanism of making dividend payments (higher propensity to pay and greater yield) to reduce agency conflicts. We conclude these associations are the direct result of the institutional features of the Mexican business environment, which is characterized by concentrated ownership of insiders, interlocked boards of directors, a lack of insider trading enforcement, and generally poor protection of minority investors. Our results show that monitoring mechanisms alone are not enough to fundamentally change economic behavior.     

Do investment banks listen to their own analysts?

To what extent conflicts of interest affect the investment value of sell-side analyst research is an ongoing debate. We approach this issue from a new direction by investigating how asset-management divisions of investment banks use stock recommendations issued by their own analysts. Based on holdings changes around initiations, upgrades, and downgrades from 1993 to 2003, we find that these bank-affiliated investors follow recommendations from sell-side analysts in general, increasing (decreasing) their relative holdings following positive (negative) recommendations. More importantly, these investors respond more strongly to recommendations issued by their own analysts than to those issued by analysts affiliated with other banks, especially for recommendations on small and low-analyst-coverage firms. Thus, we find that investment banks “eat their own cooking,” showing that these presumably sophisticated institutional investors view sell-side recommendations as having investment value, particularly when the recommendations come from their own analysts.     

Conflicts of interest in sell-side research and the moderating role of institutional investors

Because sell-side analysts are dependent on institutional investors for performance ratings and trading commissions, we argue that analysts are less likely to succumb to investment banking or brokerage pressure in stocks highly visible to institutional investors. Examining a comprehensive sample of analyst recommendations over the 1994–2000 period, we find that analysts’ recommendations relative to consensus are positively associated with investment banking relationships and brokerage pressure but negatively associated with the presence of institutional investor owners. The presence of institutional investors is also associated with more accurate earnings forecasts and more timely re-ratings following severe share price falls.     

Under watchful eyes: Analyst site visits and firm earnings management

This paper investigates whether analyst site visits, where sell-side analysts visit corporate sites and interact with management, reduce earnings management by host firms. Taking advantage of the disclosure of analyst site visits by Chinese listed firms, we find that the intensity of analyst site visits is negatively associated with discretionary accruals, and this relation is robust to controlling for endogeneity. Furthermore, we find that site visits attended by star analysts and including factory tours are associated with lower levels of discretionary accruals than those without these features. We also report that the number and coverage of questions posed during site visits are negatively associated with discretionary accruals. Our results demonstrate that site visits by sell-side analysts perform a vital monitoring role and exert significant constraints on firms' opportunistic financial reporting.     

Affiliated mutual funds and analyst optimism

This paper extends the literature on analyst optimism. Our analysis of a large sample of recommendations issued from 1995 through 2006 indicates that sell-side analysts are likely to assign frequent and favorable ratings to a stock after the analysts’ affiliated mutual funds invest in that stock. Controlling for a number of variables, including the ties between analysts and investment banks, we find that the greater the portfolio weight of a stock in the fund family, the more optimistic the stock ratings from affiliated analysts become. Since 2002, analysts’ optimism on stocks held by affiliated mutual funds has declined. However, an analyst's decision of upgrading a stock to a “strong buy” rating is still significantly associated with the portfolio weight of that stock in the fund family.     

From new deal institutions to capital markets: Commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance

The investment fueled US mortgage market has traditionally been sustained by New Deal institutions called government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Known as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the GSEs once dominated mortgage backed securities underwriting. The recent subprime mortgage crisis has drawn attention to the fact that during the real estate boom, these agencies were temporarily overtaken by risk tolerant channels of lending, securitization, and investment, driven by investment banks and private capital players. This research traces the movement of a specific brand of commercial consumer credit analytics into mortgage underwriting. It demonstrates that what might look like the spontaneous rise (and fall) of a ‘free’ market divested of direct government intervention has been thoroughly embedded in the concerted movement of calculative risk management technologies. The transformations began with a sequence of GSE decisions taken in the mid-1990’s to implement a consumer risk score called a FICO^® into automated underwriting systems. Having been endorsed by the GSEs, this scoring tool was gradually hardwired throughout the industry to become a distributed and collective ‘market device’. As the paper will show, once modified by specific GSE interpretations the calculative properties generated by these credit bureau scores reconfigured mortgage finance into two parts: the conventional, risk-adverse, GSE conforming ‘prime’ and an infrastructurally distinct, risk-avaricious, investment grade ‘subprime’.     

The impact of voluntary audit and governance characteristics on accounting errors in private companies

This paper examines the extent to which the audit and corporate governance characteristics of UK private companies are associated with defective accounting information. Despite the economic importance of private firms, relatively little is known about their financial reporting and governance characteristics. Using a large sample of UK private companies, we examine the effects of voluntary audit, board gender balance and financial expertise on the likelihood of errors occurring in published annual accounts. Our results indicate that audited accounts are approximately half as likely as unaudited accounts to contain errors. In addition to contributing to recent academic research in this field, our findings are likely to be of interest to policy makers, who are considering exempting more firms from mandatory audit. We also find that gender diversity among board members is positively associated with the accuracy of accounting information, though our primary measure of directors’ financial expertise has no significant effect.     

The impact of corporate governance on financial performance of Indian and GCC listed firms: An empirical investigation

Corporate governance plays a vital role in creating a corporate culture of consciousness, transparency, and openness. In this context, this paper provides a brief view about the background of corporate governance mechanisms in India and Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries, corporate legal system and monitoring policies laid down by Indian and GCC governments. Furthermore, it analyzes the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on the financial performance of Indian and GCC listed firms. The study uses a sample that consists of 53 non-financial listed companies from India and 53 non-financial listed companies from GCC countries for the period 2009–2016. Results revealed that board accountability (BA) and audit committee (AC) have an insignificant impact on firms' performance measured by ROE and Tobin’s Q. Similarly, transparency and disclosure (TD) have an insignificant negative impact on firms' performance measured by Tobin’s Q. Moreover, the country dummy results show that Indian firms are performing better than Gulf countries ones in terms of corporate governance practices and financial performance. The current study is considered as a battery for further research and studies particularly in India & GCC listed firms in the context of corporate governance and financial performance.     

公司治理 财务契约与财务控制

本文着重分析公司的各种财务契约关系中索取权人之间的利益冲突,以及这些契约解决经济主体之间的利益冲突的主要机制。从财务控制的角度,分析不同的索取权人对公司实施投资控制、筹资控制和分配控制的主要机制和控制要点。从契约和控制的角度分析了现行公司治理结构的成因,探讨了财务控制权的配置问题。     

Corporate Governance and Earnings Management: The Implications of Corporate Governance Best-Practice Principles for Taiwanese Listed Companies

This study investigates whether corporate governance characteristics, mandated by the Corporate Governance Best-Practice Principles (CGBPP) for companies listed in Taiwan, are associated with earnings management. In particular, we examine whether the independence, financial expertise, and voluntary formation of independent directorships (supervisorships) are associated with the absolute value of discretionary accruals. Our findings suggest that the independence of supervisors, the financial expertise of independent directors, and the voluntary formation of independent directorships (supervisorships) are associated with a lower likelihood of earnings management. These findings are stronger after the CGBPP was enacted, suggesting that the implementation of CGBPP has lowered the likelihood of earnings management.     

Capitalist accountability and the British Industrial Revolution: The Carron Company, 1759–circa. 1850

The paper argues that accounting historians can help us to understand the origins of the British Industrial Revolution (BIR) by explaining the contribution of accounting to financial success. It re-examines the archive of the Carron Company (hereafter, ‘Carron’) from its formation in 1759 to around 1850 to explore the theory derived from Marx that class conflict, the capitalist mentality, its social relations of production, and accounts, drove the BIR. It shows that, contrary to the currently accepted view that Carron’s early financial accounts were a ‘shambles’, its partners used integrated financial and management accounts based on double entry bookkeeping to impose capitalist accountability on their managers and workers. The paper argues that zealous accounting was critical to Carron’s financial success because accountability for capital drove organisational and technical innovation and it underlay the partners’ early social solidarity. Carron’s partners worked collectively during the company’s difficult formative period up to the 1780s, using accounts to hold the managing partner and his subordinates accountable to them for the circulation of capital and to conduct class war against their workers. From the 1790s, the managing partner exploited a weakness in Carron’s system of corporate governance to understate its profits to demoralise other partners into selling their shares to give him control, which he used to divert a disproportionate share of its accumulating wealth to him and his family. The paper concludes that Carron’s history supports the Marxist theory that accounts played an important role in fuelling the BIR by giving capitalists a technology for controlling production for profit, what Marx called controlling the ‘valorization process’, and for promoting the social cohesion of capital. It calls on accounting historians to test this theory by revisiting the archives of other leading BIR firms, so that we can construct a history of this pivotal shift in the trajectory of world economic development on solid empirical foundations.     

基于公司治理结构的财务控制模式选择

公司治理结构是公司制度的核心,良好的公司治理结构是提高企业经营管理效率的基本要素。科学、有效的内部控制制度,是现代企业实现其经营管理目标的有力保证。公司治理能促使财务控制有效运行,是保证财务控制功能发挥的前提和基础,是实行财务控制的制度环境。财务控制在公司治理中担当的是内部管理监控系统的角色,加强和完善企业财务控制,应从完善公司治理出发完善企业财务控制环境,财务控制作为管理当局为履行管理目标而建立的一系列规则、政策和程序,与公司治理有着密不可分的关系。     

Analyst coverage and earnings management

What is the role of information intermediaries in corporate governance? This paper examines equity analysts’ influence on managers’ earnings management decisions. Do analysts serve as external monitors to managers, or do they put excessive pressure on managers? Using multiple measures of earnings management, I find that firms followed by more analysts manage their earnings less. To address the potential endogeneity problem of analyst coverage, I use two instrumental variables based on change in broker size and on firm's inclusion in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, and I find that the results are robust. Finally, given the number of covering analysts, analysts from top brokers and more experienced analysts have stronger effects against earnings management.     

Causal effect of analyst following on corporate social responsibility

I examine the influence of sell-side financial analysts on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and find that firms with greater analyst coverage tend to be less socially responsible. To establish causality, I employ a difference-in-differences (DiD) technique, using brokerage closures and mergers as exogenous shocks to analyst coverage, as well as an instrumental variables approach. Both identification strategies suggest that analyst coverage has a negative causal effect on CSR. Analyst coverage seems to influence CSR activities via analysts' influence on the value of managerial ownership and discretionary spending. My findings are consistent with the view that spending on CSR is a manifestation of an agency problem and that financial analysts curb such discretionary spending by disciplining managers.     

公司治理和融资政策的关系研究综述

公司治理在融资政策选择中起着重要作用。公司治理作为减少代理成本的激励机制，能抑制内部人机会主义行为，使其不能按自身利益调整公司融资政策。同时，公司治理通过减低信息不对称水平、减少小股东受掠夺的风险进而降低资本成本。本文对国内外公司治理与融资政策之间关系的研究进行了全面、系统的回顾，评价了现有文献存在的问题和不足之处，为中国上市公司治理结构和公司融资问题的研究提供了依据。具体而言，本文回顾了公司治理和资本结构、公司治理和债务期限结构、公司治理和资本成本之间的关系。     

Tagging the triggers: an empirical analysis of information events prompting sell-side analyst reports

In order to fulfill their function as information intermediaries in capital markets, sell-side equity analysts regularly issue updated forecasts on the stocks they cover. Quite often, the publication of (revised) analysts’ reports is subject to certain trigger events such as the publication of annual figures or the announcement of an upcoming merger. In this exploratory study, we develop a two-step procedure to identify the core events that trigger the release of analysts’ reports on companies that constitute the Dow Jones EuroSTOXX50 index during the three-year period from 2004 to 2006. These can be grouped into Financial Disclosures, Corporate Management, Corporate Strategy, Business Activity, Operating Environment and Share. The results suggest that sell-side analysts attach great importance to non-financial information events when transforming their earnings estimates into valuation forecasts and stock recommendations. Additionally, we link the information events identified as reasons of issuance to the summary measures disclosed in the reports in order to investigate the relationship between the report trigger and associated analyst reaction. Our findings indicate that the forecasting activity of sell-side analysts is greatly influenced by forward-looking statements made by management, strategy-related news flow, and non-company-specific information relating to the covered firm’s operating environment.     

Corporate valuation around the world: The effects of governance,growth, and openness

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of corporate valuation around the world. Specifically, we (i) document and compare corporate valuation around the world, and (ii) identify the key factors that drive cross-country differences in valuation. In doing so, we utilize the country-level Tobin’s q (CTQ), computed as the ratio of the aggregate market value to book value of all assets held by all public firms domiciled in a country, which amounts to the Tobin’s q for the ‘market portfolio’ of the country. The key findings of the paper are: First, CTQ varies greatly across countries, ranging from 0.73 for Venezuela to 2.11 for Finland, with the international mean of 1.30 during our sample period 1999–2004. Despite the steady integration of the world economy in recent years, corporate valuation remains starkly different across countries. Second, apart from the effect of corporate governance, cross-country differences in corporate valuation are significantly driven by the growth options of countries represented by the R&D intensities, capital expenditures, and GDP growth. In addition, the degree of capital market openness has a significant, independent effect on valuation. Third, our regression analyses show that CTQ varies directly with shareholder rights, enforcement of insider trading laws, GDP growth, R&D intensity, and the degree of capital market openness. The key findings remain robust to the inclusion of inflation and industry effects.     

The impact of corporate governance on Internet financial reporting

This study examines the association between corporate governance mechanisms and disclosure transparency measured by the level of Internet financial reporting (IFR) behavior. We measure corporate governance by shareholder rights, ownership structure, board composition, and audit committee characteristics. We develop a disclosure index to measure the extent of each sample firm’s IFR by presentation format, information content, and corporate governance disclosures. Results indicate that firms with weak shareholder rights, a lower percentage of blockholder ownership, a higher percentage of independent directors, a more diligent audit committee, and a higher percentage of audit committee members that are considered financial experts are more likely to engage in IFR. The findings suggest that corporate governance mechanisms influence a firm’s Internet disclosure behavior, presumably in response to the information asymmetry between management and investors and the resulting agency costs. Additional exploratory analysis indicates that the association between corporate governance and IFR varies with firm size. Our results suggest that new regulatory guidance in corporate governance leads to improved disclosure transparency via IFR.