The pricing of conservative accounting and the measurement of conservatism at the firm-year level

This paper analyzes the relation between equity prices and conditional conservatism and introduces a new measure of conservatism at the firm-year level. We show that the asymmetric properties of conservative accounting, the existence of non-accounting sources of information, and the properties of GAAP related to special items combine to generate a nonlinear relation between unexpected equity returns and earnings news (the shock to expected current and future earnings). Based on this model, we construct a conservatism ratio (CR) defined as the ratio of the current earnings shock to earnings news. CR measures the proportion of the total shock to expected current and future earnings recognized in current year earnings. Ranking firms according to CR, we show empirically that higher CR firms have more leverage, increased volatility of returns, more incidence of losses, more negative accruals, and increased volatility of earnings and accruals, consistent with the literature on conservative accounting.     

Debt Maturity Structure and Accounting Conservatism

This study examines the association between debt maturity structure and accounting conservatism. Short‐maturity debt can mitigate agency costs of debt arising from information asymmetry and suboptimal investment problems inherent in debt financing. As such, debt‐contracting demand for accounting conservatism is expected to be lower in the presence of more short‐maturity debt. We find that short‐maturity debt is negatively associated with accounting conservatism. As firms could commit to more accounting conservatism to gain access to long‐maturity debt, we conduct lead‐lag tests of the direction of causality, and the results suggest that more short‐maturity debt leads to less conservative reporting, rather than the reverse. We also find the negative relation between short‐maturity debt and accounting conservatism is more pronounced among financially distressed firms, where ex ante severity of agency costs of debt are higher. Collectively, our results contribute to our understanding of the role of accounting conservatism in debt contracting and show how debt maturity, a key and pervasive feature of creditor protection in debt contracting, affects accounting conservatism.     

Agency costs of free cash flow and conditional conservatism

This study investigates whether agency costs of free cash flow (FCF) are associated with conditional conservatism. Prior research documents that conditional conservatism improves ex ante efficient investment decisions and facilitates ex post monitoring of managers’ investment decisions. As conditional conservatism can provide protection from possible managerial expropriation, the demand for conditional conservatism should increase with the agency costs of FCF. Using excess cash as a proxy for the agency costs of FCF, I provide evidence that firms with higher agency costs of FCF incorporate losses in a timelier manner relative to gains compared to their counterparts. Additionally, the association between excess cash and conditional conservatism predictably varies with the presence of alternative monitoring mechanisms that mitigate FCF problems, such as debt or dividend payouts or repurchases. Further investigation suggests that greater conservatism is associated with a lower likelihood of overinvestment among firms bearing high agency costs of FCF, demonstrating the ability of conservatism to reduce agency costs of FCF.     

Analyst forecast,accounting conservatism and the related valuation implications

This study investigates whether financial analysts incorporate accounting conservatism into their earnings forecasts and whether it is more difficult for them to forecast earnings for less conservative firms, and then examines the impact of the findings on the return predictability of the value‐to‐price (V/P) ratio. After controlling for the other factors affecting forecast accuracy, such as earnings predictability and information uncertainty, I find that analysts incorporate accounting conservatism into their earnings forecasts and that forecasting earnings is more difficult for less conservative firms. Consequently, the return predictability of the V/P ratio is stronger for more conservative firms, and previously reported return predictability of the V/P ratio is an average across firms with differing levels of conservatism.     

S&P 500 Membership and Managers’ Supply of Conservative Financial Reports

Our study is motivated by economic theory and the debate among practitioners, standard setters, and academics on the role of conditional conservatism in financial reporting. We find that managers provide less conditionally conservative financial reports after their firms are added to the Standard and Poor's (S&P) 500 index. S&P 500 membership is expected to reduce information asymmetry between managers and outside stakeholders due to an increased flow of public and private information. As a result, the contracting benefits of conservative accounting choices are reduced, and managers are less willing to provide conditionally conservative reports. In contrast, we find that managers provide more conditionally conservative financial reports after their firms are deleted from the index. Firms being deleted from the S&P 500 index probably incur an increase in information asymmetry. Overall, our results provide evidence consistent with conditional conservatism being a response by managers to the information needs of financial statements users.     

Accounting conservatism and common ownership by dedicated institutional blockholders

We examine the peer effects of accounting conservatism in a common dedicated institutional blockholder (CDIB) setting. We find a positive correlation in accounting conservatism between focal firms and their CDIB peers. To corroborate our main findings, we document that the peer effect is stronger for firms connected through CDIBs that are activists or that have more active shares, for firms with larger CDIB ownership and for firms with weaker corporate governance mechanisms and higher information asymmetry. The results suggest that managers view following peer firms’ conservatism as a way of pleasing CDIBs. We also find that in proxy voting, firms receive less support from their investors when their conservatism deviates more from their CDIB peers. Finally, we find that the CDIB peer effect remains significant after controlling for the effect of industry and local peers. Overall, our paper presents evidence consistent with firms adapting their accounting conservatism in response to their incumbent dedicated institutional investors’ preference.     

会计稳健性对投资效率的作用机理研究——基于企业并购的研究视角

在剩余收益估值模型的基础上构造了 Basu (1997)的反函数,从而构建了可同时度量非条件稳健性和条件稳健性的实证模型,并基于企业并购的视角,探究了会计稳健性对企业投资效率的事前和事后影响。研究发现：非条件稳健性可以提升企业事前投资效率(降低并购溢价,提升累计超额收益率),阻止管理层的机会主义行为;条件稳健性会促进企业事后投资效率(并购前后绩效变化),保证项目的盈利性。进一步的研究表明：会计稳健性与企业投资效率的关系会随着上市公司代理成本的增加而越加明显。此外,国有企业和民营企业对于会计稳健性的公司治理效应存在差异。最后扩展了由 Lawrence,Sloan and Sun (2013)提出的稳健性操纵的定义。     

Securities class actions and conditional conservatism: Evidence from two legal events

We use two US court rulings as exogenous shocks to firms' litigation environment and examine the changes in conservative financial reporting following these court decisions. The Silicon Graphics ruling in 1999 imposed a heightened pleading standard and discouraged the filing of shareholder lawsuits against firms with headquarters in the Ninth Circuit. The Tellabs ruling in 2007, however, effectively reversed the Silicon Graphics ruling and made it easier to file securities litigation against Ninth Circuit firms. We predict and find that the reduced litigation risk following the Silicon Graphics ruling discourages conservative reporting for Ninth Circuit firms. By contrast, the elevated threat of shareholder lawsuits following the Tellabs ruling encourages conservative reporting for Ninth Circuit firms relative to non-Ninth Circuit firms. The disciplining effect of the threat of shareholder lawsuits on conservatism is stronger for firms facing higher ex ante litigation risk. The litigation-risk-induced increase (decrease) in reporting conservatism leads to higher (lower) firm valuations.     

Managerial Overconfidence and Accounting Conservatism

Overconfident managers overestimate future returns from their firms’ investments. Thus, we predict that overconfident managers will tend to delay loss recognition and generally use less conservative accounting. Furthermore, we test whether external monitoring helps to mitigate this effect. Using measures of both conditional and unconditional conservatism respectively, we find robust evidence of a negative relation between CEO overconfidence and accounting conservatism. We further find that external monitoring does not appear to mitigate this effect. Our findings add to the growing literature on overconfidence and complement the findings by Schrand and Zechman [2011] that overconfidence affects financial reporting behavior.     

A Wealth-Based Explanation for Earnings Conservatism

This study extends research on earnings conservatism – the degree to which the accounting system recognizes bad news regarding future cash flows in a more timely manner than good news – by arguing that heterogeneous executives' risk attitudes will influence the degree of conservatism. Prior research has demonstrated that differences in earnings conservatism are mainly the result of differences in institutional factors (Basu (1997) and Ball et al. (2000a)). We hypothesize that more risk-averse managers, who demand a risk premium that offsets the effects of the variance in their compensation, will report more conservative earnings. Earnings conservatism will temper expectations among stakeholders about the future cash flows to be distributed thereby diminishing the likelihood of disappointing outcomes and potential litigation or threats for executives of being fired. The more risk-averse manager would be more inclined to reduce such conflicts, since they will have a destabilizing effect on his future compensation. The empirical results for a sample of Dutch companies over the period of 1983 to 1995 confirm our hypothesis: more risk-averse managers report earnings more conservatively than do less risk-averse managers.     

Conservatism,SEC investigation,and fraud

We present evidence on the relationship between firms that have engaged in fraudulent financial reporting and accounting conservatism. We empirically investigate the extent to which US firms identified by the SEC in their Enforcement Releases demonstrate higher levels of conditional conservatism in order to mitigate information asymmetry and agency problems. Specifically, by assessing the timing of changes in the litigation risk environment for fraud firms, we document how differences in heightened legal liability guide changes in conservative accounting behavior. Compared to a matched non-fraud control sample, we document that fraud firms have significantly lower levels of accounting conservatism in the pre-fraud period. Consistent with changes in potential legal liability, we find an increase in accounting conservatism for fraud firms during the SEC investigation period. Subsequently, during the public discovery of fraud, any increases in accounting conservatism are marginal and appear to converge back to lower levels compared to the SEC investigation period. Overall, our findings suggest more temporary changes in conservative reporting in the short-term for fraud firms. We also document that increased levels of accounting conservatism for fraud firms are not due solely to the passage of the SOX Act. Our findings aid in explaining fraud firms’ incentives and opportunities for accounting conservatism and lend support for why standard setters, regulators and auditors should continue to monitor and re-evaluate conservatism’s short-term effects that are conditioned on changes in a firm’s risk environment.     

The relationship between R&D intensity,conservatism, and management earnings forecast issuance

R&D-intensive firms suffer from high information asymmetry and high proprietary costs and are prone to exhibit bottom-line losses given the unconditional conservative accounting treatment of R&D expenses. We examine how R&D intensity influences the issuance of management earnings forecasts (MEFs) across levels of accounting conservatism, controlling for proprietary costs and other earnings guidance determinants. We provide insights into how managers view the tradeoffs of using MEF disclosures to lower information asymmetry versus the costs of releasing proprietary information to competitors and the loss of reputational capital that could arise from providing inaccurate forecasts. We find that although R&D intensity and conditional conservatism are negatively related to the issuance of MEFs, as shown in prior research, at high levels of research intensity and the accompanying uncertainty about future payoffs, the negative association between conditional conservatism and MEF issuance is mitigated. These findings point to a role for conditional conservatism as a credibility enhancer for managers of R&D intense firms.     

高管变更与会计稳健性的相关性研究

以2001～2006年的A股上市公司为样本,对高管变更和继任高管的职业背景、来源方式与会计稳健性的相关性进行研究,发现发生高管变更的公司比没有发生高管变更的公司在第二年会采取稳健性较高的会计政策;在高管变更的公司中,当继任者是职业经理人或者来自于公司外部时,该公司采用了更为稳健性的会计政策。     

The role of accounting conservatism in management forecast bias

We investigate whether management earnings forecasts fully incorporate information in historical accounting conservatism. We find that management earnings forecasts are more optimistic for firms with greater accounting conservatism in the previous year. We further examine whether this conservatism-related optimistic bias in management earnings forecasts varies with managers’ difficulty predicting earnings accurately, managers’ opportunistic incentives, and the firms’ litigation risk. We find that the negative association between management forecast errors and conservatism increases, to various extent, with the firms’ operating cycles, earnings volatility, and the width of forecast range but does not change with proxies for opportunistic incentives or litigation risk. These results suggest that forecast difficulty is the primary reason for managers’ failure to incorporate conservatism fully in their earnings forecasts.     

Conditional accounting conservatism and future negative surprises: An empirical investigation

We investigate whether conditional accounting conservatism has informational benefits to shareholders. We find some evidence that higher current conditional conservatism is associated with lower probability of future bad news, proxied by missing analyst forecasts, earnings decreases, and dividend decreases. Second, we find weak evidence that the stock market reacts stronger (weaker) to good (bad) earnings news of more conditionally conservative firms. Thus, we provide additional evidence that conditional conservatism affects stock prices.     

Effects of air pollution on accounting conservatism

We examine the impact of air pollution on a firm's accounting policy conservatism. We hypothesize that, in response to risks associated with increased air pollution, firms apply more conservative accounting practices and utilize more conservative estimates in their reporting. Using a sample of Chinese firms, accounting conservatism measures, and a satellite-based air pollution metric, we confirm the validity of our hypothesis. Additional analysis suggests that the impact of air pollution on accounting policy conservatism is more salient for firms in high-pollution industries, firms under severe financial constraint, firms with higher environmental risk, and firms that receive high media coverage. Further, we document that air pollution does not significantly affect a firm's return on assets, year-on-year sales growth, or Tobin's Q measure. Hence, it is management's risk perception, not objective performance concern, that is driving accounting conservatism. Finally, specifically investigating accounting conservatism, we discover that, for firms with higher pollution levels, selling general and administrative expenses, liabilities provision, accrued expenses, and asset impairment loss are significantly higher.     

会计稳健性与债权人利益保护——基于银行与上市公司关于贷款的法律诉讼的研究

本文研究了债权人对会计稳健性的需求。本文利用银行起诉上市公司违反债务契约的法律诉讼数据,分析银行是否要求被起诉企业采取更为稳健的会计政策(起诉前两年、前一年和当年),以及不同类型的银行对稳健性的需求是否存在差异。研究发现,相比未被银行起诉的企业,被银行起诉的企业会计政策更为稳健,而且非四大国有银行对会计稳健性的要求更高。进一步的研究还发现,被银行起诉的企业在被起诉前贷款利率不断提高,这也间接支持了会计稳健性能够帮助银行采取进一步的措施来保护自身利益。     

The Effect of Accounting Conservatism on Corporate Investment during the Global Financial Crisis

This paper examines the effect of accounting conservatism on firm‐level investment during the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Using a differences‐in‐differences design, we find that firms with less conservative financial reporting experienced a sharper decline in investment activity following the onset of the crisis compared to firms with more conservative financial reporting. This relationship was stronger for firms that were financially constrained, faced greater external financing needs, or had higher information asymmetry. We also find that more conservative firms experienced lower declines in both debt‐raising activity and stock performance. The evidence suggests that accounting conservatism reduces underinvestment in the presence of information frictions.     

Unexpected Accruals and Conditional Accounting Conservatism

Abstract:  This paper examines the impact of management discretion over accruals on conditional accounting conservatism, defined as the tendency of accountants to recognize bad news on a timelier basis than good news. Prior research suggests that conditional accounting conservatism reflected in earnings is mainly due to the accrual component of earnings, not the cash flow component of earnings. After decomposing total accruals into expected and unexpected accruals, I find that (1) conditional accounting conservatism reflected in accruals is mainly due to unexpected accruals; (2) the negative association between unconditional and conditional accounting conservatism is mainly attributable to unexpected accruals; and (3) firms with higher leverage exhibit conditionally more conservative accounting primarily through unexpected accruals. These results are robust to accrual models that take into account the systematic association between accruals and cash flows and their non-linearity and to the asymmetric persistence of earnings changes specification of conditional accounting conservatism. Taken together, these results suggest that managers exercise their discretion over accruals to expedite the recognition of bad news rather than good news.