年报预约披露日变更、时机选择与会计稳健性——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

上市公司年度报告普遍存在"好消息早,坏消息晚"的披露现象,但会计准则中稳健性原则对"好消息"、"坏消息"的确认具有非对称性。本文从会计稳健性的视角探讨了盈余稳健性与年报预约披露日变更、时机选择的关系,经验证据表明:相比延迟发布年报,提前披露的年报的会计稳健性更高;而相比非周末披露年报,在周末披露的年报的会计稳健性更低;上市公司年报的会计稳健性与其披露及时性显著正相关,会计稳健性越高,披露越及时。     

Review

In this study we extend prior research on the international analysis of accounting conservatism (Joos and Lang, 1994; Ball et al., 2000; Giner and Rees, 2001), by examining the level of accounting conservatism across eight European countries (United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Belgium), and assessing the statistical significance of the differences among them. The definitions of conservatism that we use are, on the one hand, the Feltham and Ohlson (1995) definition, which implies a persistent understatement of book value of shareholders' equity (balance sheet conservatism). On the other hand, we use the one proposed by Basu (1997), that is, a timelier recognition of bad news in earnings relative to good news (earnings conservatism). We also address the possible scale problems of the models used to measure balance sheet conservatism. Finally, we check whether our comparative results could be influenced by a different sample composition in each country. Our results show that there are both balance sheet and earnings conservatism practices in all countries under study. In addition, while continental countries show larger balance sheet conservatism, differences in earnings conservative practices between countries are not that pronounced, although they tend to be larger in the UK. We also find that the existence of balance sheet conservative practices is associated with reduced levels of earnings conservatism, which is consistent with the results in Pope and Walker (2003).     

关于会计稳健问题的理论探讨

本文通过立足于会计稳健原则,引入和借鉴国外学者的研究成果,分类出有条件稳健(盈余稳健)应计项目稳健和无条件稳健(资产负债表稳健)等会计稳健,并对其来源和检验方法进行了分析,对有条件稳健和无条件稳健衡量指标检验方法之间的关系进行了探讨,同时分析了会计稳健产生的原因和经济后果,以期为后续的研究提供参考。     

业绩预告下的股份减持与内幕交易——会计稳健性是遏制还是助力？

选取2010—2018年沪深A股上市公司为样本,考察业绩预告发布前后大股东是否存在以及如何利用自身信息优势进行股份减持交易,会计稳健性是否以及如何对该内幕交易产生影响。研究结果表明:与强制性业绩预告相比,自愿性业绩预告披露前后发生大股东减持的概率更高,并且会计稳健性会显著抑制自愿性业绩预告披露前后的大股东减持行为。进一步将业绩预告消息区分为好消息和坏消息之后研究发现:坏消息的利空程度越高,大股东在业绩预告之前进行股份减持的规模越大;或者好消息的利好程度越高,大股东在业绩预告之后减持的规模也越大;稳健的财务信息能够抑制公司在隐匿坏消息方面进行的内幕交易,但会加剧公司在隐匿好消息方面进行的内幕交易。     

The Effects of Conservative Reporting on Investor Disagreement

We examine whether the level of a firm's conditional conservatism affects investor disagreement around earnings announcement dates. Investor disagreement is relevant for its repercussions on stock market efficiency. However, the literature related to the effect of firms’ reporting policies on disagreement is scant. Prior research suggests that conservatism, by requiring higher verifiability of profits, constrains earnings overstatements and encourages more complete revelations of losses, thus improving the information environment. In this paper, we further hypothesize that these effects of conservatism enhance news credibility and decrease information asymmetry, particularly for bad news announcements. This results in a lower disagreement and improved interpretation of earnings news. We consistently find that conservatism measures are negatively associated with proxies of announcement-time investor disagreement and that this effect is stronger when the firm is reporting bad news. Additional analyses indicate that the impact of conservatism is stronger when market surprise to the announcement is greater, while it is weaker in the presence of frequent and precise voluntary disclosure that preempts the earnings announcement. Finally, we show that a higher percentage of institutional investors’ ownership and a higher level of commitment to conservatism reinforce the impact of the latter.     

International Differences in Conditional Conservatism – The Role of Unconditional Conservatism and Income Smoothing

Abstract

Prior research documents that conditional conservatism, measured as the asymmetric timeliness of earnings reflecting bad vs. good news, varies with cross-country differences in institutional regimes. In this paper, we examine the determinants of conditional conservatism and related earnings attributes internationally. First, using panel data, we investigate whether competing earnings attributes such as unconditional conservatism and income smoothing affect conditional conservatism and its international differences. We find that these attributes are predictably correlated with conditional conservatism. Second, we address the question whether income smoothing and conditional conservatism are two fundamentally different earnings attributes. We show theoretically that both attributes yield different earnings distributions and that the motivations for producing earnings which possess these attributes differ. To test these predictions empirically, we calculate firm-specific time-series measures of asymmetric timeliness, using a novel trigonometric measure based on the standard Basu (1997)-type regression. Using this cross-sectional data, we test whether conditional conservatism and income smoothing are different and find them to be only weakly correlated for a broad international sample. Also, we demonstrate that income smoothing explains international differences in conditional conservatism. Finally, we estimate simple determinant models of conditional conservatism and income smoothing, showing that both earnings attributes are driven by different explanatory firm-level factors: Conditional conservatism increases with the importance of debt financing, while income smoothing increases with the importance of dividends. Despite some important limitations, we believe our results to be meaningful because they show that cross-country differences in conditional conservatism are influenced by the effects of other accounting properties, predominantly income smoothing. Especially, legal regime appears to drive income smoothing while losing its explanatory power for conditional conservatism when firm-specific factors are controlled for.     

The Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis on Conservatism and Timeliness of Earnings: Evidence from Hong Kong,Malaysia, Singapore,and Thailand

This paper examines conservatism and timeliness of earnings in the period surrounding the 1997 Asian financial crisis in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Prior research suggests that managers tended to be more aggressive in reporting good news and delayed recognition of bad news during the financial crisis (less conservative and less timely in financial reporting). After the crisis, these four countries implemented corporate governance measures to stabilize their financial systems and improve regulation and supervision (that should improve conservatism and timeliness). We examine and find that conservatism and timeliness of earnings during the crisis period are low, but improved in the post‐crisis period. More importantly, conservatism and timeliness in the post‐crisis period is even greater than in the pre‐crisis period. We measure conservatism using Basu's model and the accumulation of non‐operating accruals suggested by Givoly and Hayn. The findings from both measures are consistent with an increase in conservatism after the crisis period. Overall, the results indicate that corporate governance reforms in these four countries had a positive impact on conservatism and timeliness of earnings.     

Differential Interpretations,Private Information and Trading Volume Around French Firms' Good News vs. Bad News Preliminary Announcements

ABSTRACT

This study provides new evidence that both differential interpretations and private information production spur trading volume for a sample of 144 preliminary earnings announcements in the French markets. After partitioning the sample into preliminary announcements that convey good news versus bad news, I find that good news stimulates more production of private information, whereas bad news leads to more differential interpretations. I further find that increased production of private information (but not differential interpretations) helps explain trading volume around good news preliminary earnings announcements. In contrast, differential interpretations (and not private information) help explain trading volume around bad news preliminary earnings announcements.     

媒体报道、会计稳健性与股价崩盘风险

新闻媒体的信息传播和监督治理功能在减少信息不对称、缓解管理者囤积坏消息等方面发挥着重要作用。以沪深A股上市公司2012—2018年非平衡面板数据为样本,通过OLS回归分析上市公司股价崩盘风险是否会受到媒体报道及会计稳健性的影响。实证结果表明,媒体报道和会计稳健性与股价崩盘风险呈显著负相关关系,会计稳健性可以强化媒体报道对股价崩盘风险的影响。进一步分析发现,媒体报道与股价崩盘风险之间的负相关主要集中在正面新闻报道较多的公司和诉讼或声誉风险较高的公司。     

Accounting earnings and firm valuation: the French case

Considering that the level of the association between stock returns and accounting earnings provides a measure of the extent to which earnings summarize the information which is useful for firm valuation, this paper analyses the contemporaneous association between stock returns and earnings changes or earnings level of individual French stocks and portfolios for periods of one, two and five years between 1981 and 1990. The empirical findings are as follows. (a) Stock returns are more linked to earnings changes than to earnings levels indicating that earnings provide more information about changes in firm value than about firm value. (b) Earnings prepared in accordance with the French accounting principles are not less value-relevant than those prepared in accordance with US or UK GAAP. (c) A cross-sectionally and time-aggregated data procedure provides a large increase in the explanatory power of earnings for returns which is consistent with a noise-in-earnings effect probably induced by accounting measurement and valuation principles and with a recognition lag effect due to the fact that value-relevant events are not integrated into earnings exactly when they occur. These two effects are shown to be the major causes of the low association between earnings and returns generally observed in studies based on short period data for individual stocks.     

Do voluntary disclosures of bad news improve liquidity?

Can managers improve market liquidity and lower the cost of capital by providing voluntary earnings guidance? This study examines the impact of profit warnings on market liquidity and finds that voluntary disclosure of bad news actually improves market liquidity. By conducting an empirical study over the period 1995–2010 on NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX listed firms, we find that firms that issue profit warnings show enhanced market liquidity during the post-announcement period. We show that profit warnings reduce information asymmetry and lower bid-ask spreads and increase trading volumes. These results are invariant to daily (short run) and monthly (long run) data after controlling for firm specific attributes. The results have major corporate policy implications. By voluntarily disclosing negative earnings guidance by managers, firms will experience significant improvement in market liquidity, thereby lowering the cost of capital. Our results are even more profound for firms that release bad news with extremely negative stock market impact. In other words, voluntary disclosure of bad news is good for market liquidity.     

资产减值:稳健性与盈余管理之争

本文研究了减值准备的计提动机及其对会计信息质量的影响。很多研究已发现减值准备的两种计提动机:经济因素和盈余管理因素。本文提出第三种计提动机:稳健性,即在同样的毁损情况下,“坏消息“公司将比“好消息“公司计提更多的减值准备,可视为一种系统的计量误差。在此基础上,从相关性和可靠性两个方面论述了减值准备动机对会计信息质量的影响,并在准则制定、执行及监管等方面提出了建议。     

The Basu Measure as an Indicator of Conditional Conservatism: Evidence from UK Earnings Components

Following the work of Basu in 1997, the excess of the sensitivity of accounting earnings to negative share return over its sensitivity to positive share return (the Basu coefficient) has been interpreted as an indicator of conditional accounting conservatism. Although this interpretation is supported by substantial evidence that the Basu coefficient is associated with likely demands for conservatism, concerns have arisen that it may reflect factors not directly related to conservatism, and that this may adversely affect its validity as an indicator of that phenomenon. We argue that evidence on the validity of the Basu coefficient as an indicator of conditional conservatism can be obtained by disaggregating earnings into components, classifying those components by whether or not they are likely to be affected by conditional conservatism, and examining whether the Basu coefficient arises primarily from components likely to be affected by conditional conservatism. We implement this procedure for UK firms reporting under FRS 3: Reporting Financial Performance from 1992 to 2004. Although a substantial proportion of the Basu coefficient emanates from cash flow from operating and investing activities (CFOI), which cannot directly reflect accounting conservatism, its incidence across other components of earnings is predominantly within those components likely to be affected by conditional conservatism. Also, although the bias documented by Patatoukas and Thomas in 2009 is present in all of our aggregate earnings measures, it is heavily concentrated in the CFOI component of earnings and largely absent from components classified as likely to be affected by conditional conservatism. With the important caveat that researchers should test the robustness of their results to the exclusion of the element of the Basu coefficient due to cash flows, our findings are consistent with the conditional conservatism interpretation of the coefficient.     

Capitalization of R&D and the Informativeness of Stock Prices

Abstract

This paper presents both a new approach to studying the consequences of accounting choice and a unique sample to examine the effects of accounting choice in the R&D context. We investigate the effect of firms' decision to capitalize R&D expenditures on the amount of information about future earnings reflected in current stock returns, as captured by the association between current-year returns and future earnings (FERC). We use a sample of UK firms, which includes both R&D capitalizers and expensers. An important feature of our tests is our use of a two-equation system to control for the endogeneity of the accounting choice (i.e. self-selection). Proponents of capitalization claim that it enables management to better communicate information about the success of projects and their probable future benefits. Consistent with this, we find that capitalization is associated with higher FERC than expensing.     

Timeliness of Annual Report Releases and Market Reaction to Earnings Announcements in an Emerging Capital Market: The Case of China

This paper examines the relation between firm performance and the timing of annual report releases in an emerging capital market. Based on the population of listed Chinese firms with A-shares for 1994-1997, we find that good news firms release their annual reports earlier than bad news firms, and loss firms release their annual reports the latest. Moreover, consistent with Chambers and Penman (1984) and Begley and Fischer (1998), these firms unexpectedly accelerate the release of good news and delay the disclosure of bad news relative to their previous reporting pattern. We also observe a significant price reaction to the annual earnings announcements for both early (good news) and late (bad news) reporting firms. Similar results are found for those A-share firms which have also issued B- or H-shares to foreign investors. Our study documents a systematic timing pattern of annual report disclosures, which is useful for investors to predict future earnings, especially in anticipating bad news in China's emerging market where information about future earnings is very limited.     

Delayed price response to the announcements of earnings and its components in Finland

Several studies report that even after accounting earnings are announced, estimated cumulative unexpected returns continue to drift up for firms that report unexpectedly good earnings and down for firms that report unexpectedly bad earnings. This paper shows that because Finnish companies tend to pay more attention to tax considerations than so-called economic reality when preparing their financial reports, this drift does not exist for reported earnings, i.e. net profit based on Finnish accounting regulations. It appears, however, that several other income levels assessed by financial statement analysis are important in this respect. The results imply that firms that make extensive adjustments for tax purposes have high unexpected returns. This is explained by the fact that those firms have enough income to extensively exploit the depreciation and other earnings management possibilities.     

Capitalization of Costs and Expected Earnings Growth

Abstract

This paper offers a model that shows how the capitalization of costs affects contemporaneous earnings and the growth path of expected earnings. It makes three points. First, reported earnings under successful efforts are more price relevant than earnings under full costing or full expensing. Second, whether conditional or unconditional, conservatism always enhances the growth rate of expected earnings. Third, independent of capitalization policy, the long-run expected earnings growth rate converges either to the long-run expected free cash flow growth rate or to the depreciation rate. Therefore, while capitalization policy affects the price relevance of earnings and short-run expected earnings growth, it does not affect long-run expected earnings growth.     

CEO Pay Contracts and IFRS Reconciliations

Abstract

We examine whether UK managers exploit the discretion provided in the UK GAAP to IFRS reconciliation process to manage earnings and whether this earnings management is associated with the structure of the managers' compensation contracts. We use a comprehensive data set of mainly hand-collected information from the firms' annual reports to provide evidence that, given the existence of an accounting-related vesting target in their pay schemes, CEOs use UK GAAP to IFRS reconciliations as an earnings management tool. We test our hypotheses under a number of different specifications, including a propensity score matching analysis. Our study contributes to the literature on the relation between earnings management and contractual incentives by focusing on a major structural change in accounting policies.     

The relationship between accounting numbers and returns: some empirical evidence from the emerging market of the Czech Republic

Generally, stock prices reflect future expectations of earnings, whereas accounting data reflect past performance. This paper attempts to discover the relationship between accounting data and market price returns of the companies listed on the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE). The Prague Stock Exchange was established in 1993 and provides an opportunity to make a comparison between a newly established market and the findings of studies of established markets. There has been a wealth of publications and accounting research studies on developed markets. Generally, accounting attributes are thought to be relevant because they tend to be contemporaneously statistically associated with stock prices. Some studies have suggested, and empirically tested, that stock prices lead earnings (e.g. Collins et al., 1987; Kothari, 1992; Kothari and Sloan, 1992; Kothari and Zimmerman, 1995). This study tests the existence of such a relationship in the Czech capital market, relying partially on the methodology proposed by Kothari and Sloan (1992) and Kothari (1992). This paper investigates whether there is a statistically significant permanent relationship between returns and accounting data on the Czech market. The study was conducted using accounting earnings and stock prices during the period 1993–8. The empirical evidence here suggests that a similar relation exists on the emerging Czech market. The relation is statistically significant for measurement windows of one year and longer. The increase in the mean response coefficient, reported later in this study, suggests that one-leading-year returns are as important as contemporaneous returns in terms of their sensitivity to annual earnings changes. However, one cannot infer with a degree of confidence that the Czech capital market views earnings changes to be largely permanent, which would be consistent with the time-series properties of annual earnings.     

定期报告预约披露日期的信息含量

沪深两交易所从2002年初开始对外公布上市公司向其预约的定期报告披露日期,本文研究了这一日期是否包含对投资者有用的信息。我们发现,在交易所公布预约日期时,公司的预约披露日期越早,则其异常回报越高,反之则低。市场的这种反应可以用随后公布的实际会计业绩好坏加以解释。我们还考察了市场的这种反应在横截面上的差异,对发布过”好消息”的预警公告及规模较大的公司,市场的反应程度较低;同时还发现预约披露日期的信息含量并未被”坏消息”的业绩预警公告所取代,这说明预约披露日期对“坏消息”的预警公司起到了进一步的证实作用。