Agency costs,ownership structure and corporate governance compliance: A private contracting perspective

This paper examines whether the adoption of specific corporate governance practices, and, in particular, adherence to an overall code of governance practice, is associated with agency cost benefits for companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Using a private and voluntary contracting setting, the adoption of individual corporate governance attributes is found to have no influence on firm-level agency costs, whereas greater compliance with an overall governance index variable representative of the ASX Corporate Governance Council requirements now in force results in significantly lower agency costs. The beneficial influence of voluntary governance compliance on agency costs is also found to be independent of firm ownership structure, with these findings having a range of implications for firms both in Australia and globally.     

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。     

Accounting conservatism and corporate governance

We predict that firms with stronger corporate governance will exhibit a higher degree of accounting conservatism. Governance level is assessed using a composite measure that incorporates several internal and external characteristics. Consistent with our prediction, strong governance firms show significantly higher levels of conditional accounting conservatism. Our tests take into account the endogenous nature of corporate governance, and the results are robust to the use of several measures of conservatism (market-based and nonmarket-based). Our evidence is consistent with the direction of causality flowing from governance to conservatism, and not vice versa, indicating that governance and conservatism are not substitutes. Finally, we study the impact of earnings discretion on the sensitivity of earnings to bad news across governance structures. We find that, on average, strong-governance firms appear to use discretionary accruals to inform investors about bad news in a timelier manner.

会计稳健性、公司治理与社会责任报告印象管理

以2009-2014年披露社会责任报告的A股上市公司为样本,研究会计稳健性与公司治理对企业社会责任报告印象管理的交互影响.结果表明:企业会计稳健性越高,社会责任报告印象管理程度越低;公司治理水平越高,社会责任报告印象管理程度越低;公司治理水平越高,会计稳健性对社会责任报告印象管理的抑制作用越小;反之,公司治理水平越低,会计稳健性对社会责任报告印象管理的抑制作用越大.会计稳健性和公司治理均有助于抑制企业社会责任报告印象管理行为,且具有替代关系,这种替代关系在非国有企业中更为显著.     

The role of unaffiliated bankers on conditional conservatism: Evidence from IFRS information shock

We exploit IFRS mandatory adoption as a source of variation in the demand for conditional conservatism to examine the role of unaffiliated bankers on the level of conditional conservatism. We show that firms with unaffiliated bankers on boards of directors experience a significant increase in the level of conditional conservatism compared with firms without unaffiliated bankers on boards. These findings hold after we account for other country‐level factors that shape the demand for conditional conservatism. Additional analyses show that the role of unaffiliated bankers on conditional conservatism depends also on firm‐specific incentives arising from the contracting environment. Taken together, our findings provide new insights into the role of corporate governance arrangements on financial reporting outcomes.     

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.     

Board governance and corporate performance

We examine the link between the monitoring capacity of the board and corporate performance of UK listed firms. We also investigate how firms use the flexibility offered by the voluntary governance regime to make governance choices. We find a strong positive association between the board governance index we construct and firm operating performance. Our results imply that adherence to the board‐related recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code strengthens the board's monitoring capacity, potentially helping mitigate agency problems, but that investors do not value it correspondingly. Moreover, in contrast to prior UK findings suggesting efficient adoption of Code recommendations, we find that firms at times use the Code flexibility opportunistically, aiming to decrease the monitoring capacity of the board, which is followed by subsequent underperformance. This finding questions the effectiveness of the voluntary approach to governance regulation followed in the UK and in many countries around the world.     

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.     

Corporate Lobbying,Visibility and Accounting Conservatism

In this study, we examine the relationship between a firm's lobbying activities and financial reporting quality using a US setting where public scrutiny of corporate political activities is high. More importantly, we examine whether and how a firm's visibility shapes the relationship between its corporate lobbying activities and accounting conservatism. Adopting annual lobbying expenditure data to measure firms’ lobbying activities, and using a propensity‐score‐matching methodology to control for differences in firm characteristics between lobbying and non‐lobbying firms, we find a positive relationship between a firm's lobbying intensity and the degree of accounting conservatism in its financial reporting. We further find this positive relationship to be more pronounced in lobbying firms with a higher level of visibility. These results are robust after controlling for a firm's political connections, across various conditional conservatism measures, and across a number of visibility measures including firm size, the number of analysts following the firm, the age of the firm, the number of foreign stock exchanges that the firm is cross‐listed in, and the level of the firm's media coverage. Together, our findings add to the literature on how firms’ political activities shape their accounting practices in general, and accounting conservatism in particular. More importantly, our findings suggest that the heightened public attention paid to political activities in the US yields incentives for firms to be more conservative in their accounting practices.     

The Effect of Mandatory IFRS Adoption on Conditional Conservatism in Europe

We study the effect of mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Europe in 2005 on conditional conservatism. We capture conditional conservatism with a modified version of the Khan and Watts measure (C_Score) that also controls for potential shifts in unconditional conservatism and cost of capital. From a sample of 13,711 firm‐year observations drawn from 16 European countries spanning the 2000–2010 period, we document an overall decline in the degree of conditional conservatism after the adoption of IFRS. We show that the decline in conditional conservatism is less pronounced for countries with high quality audit environments and strong enforcement of compliance with accounting standards using the Brown et al. audit and enforcement index. As asset impairment tests are a key mechanism ensuring conditional conservatism in the IFRS framework, we further examine these. We show that firms booking an asset impairment present a smaller decline in the degree of conditional conservatism relative to firms that do not. We also demonstrate that firms that do not book an asset impairment when evidence suggests the probable need to do so experience a more pronounced reduction in conditional conservatism. We argue that IFRS are conceptually conditionally conservative but that inappropriate application of conditional conservatism principles is likely to prevent financial reporting from reaching the level of conservatism targeted by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).     

Financial Distress and the Earnings‐Sensitivity‐Difference Measure of Conservatism

Following Basu (1997 ), the difference between the sensitivity of accounting earnings to negative equity return (proxy for bad news) and its sensitivity to positive equity return (proxy for good news) is interpreted as an indicator of conditional accounting conservatism. However, there is concern that the earnings‐sensitivity difference (ESD) may be affected by factors other than conditional conservatism, and that this may impair its reliability as an indicator of conditional conservatism. Motivated by such concerns and by recognition that financial distress could contribute to an ESD through a conditional‐conservatism route and/or through a non‐conditional‐conservatism route, we examine the association between financial distress and the ESD for U.S. non‐financial firms. By decomposing the association into an element arising from accruals, which can reflect conditional conservatism, and an element arising from cash flow from operating activities (CFO), which cannot directly reflect conditional conservatism, we seek evidence as to whether such association arises through a conditional‐conservatism route or through a non‐conditional‐conservatism route. We find that positive association between financial distress and the ESD arises predominantly through the accruals component of earnings rather than the CFO component, consistent with it arising primarily because of a higher degree of conditional conservatism in relatively financially distressed firms. The inference that there is a positive association between financial distress and conditional conservatism is supported by other non‐equity‐return‐based measures of conditional conservatism. The evidence in this paper suggests that the effect of financial distress does not significantly impair the reliability of the ESD as an indicator of conditional conservatism.     

Corporate Governance and the Prediction of the Impact of AIFRS Adoption

This study examines whether a firm's corporate governance system, particularly with respect to the characteristics of the board of directors and senior management, affects how accurately the impact of accounting changes is reported to shareholders. We concentrate on the relation between corporate governance measures and accounting forecast errors that arise with adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards by listed Australian firms. Evidence reveals that corporate governance mechanisms are associated with the likelihood and magnitude of managerial forecast errors.     

Exploring the Board Structures and Member Profiles of Top ASX Companies in Australia: An Industry‐level Analysis

Using published data from the top 166 ASX companies and 1244 corporate board members, this paper presents an industry‐level analysis of board structures and member profiles, and assesses them in terms of the ASX (2014, 2003) principles and recommendations. The analysis reveals that the average board size was seven, non‐executive director (NED) representation on boards was 70%, women held 14% of seats on corporate boards, 17% of NEDs were women and 2% of firms had chairperson/CEO duality positions. The Financial, Industrial and Energy sectors consisted of a majority of executive directors from business and the accounting field and NEDs from the engineering field with work experience of 20 to 30 years. A greater degree of diversity in the field of study and previous experience in the same and different sectors was found in relation to board members in the majority of industrial sectors. The analysis reveals that board characteristics such as board size, having a clear majority of NEDs on boards, decreasing trends in chairperson/CEO duality position, board member diversity in terms of qualifications and previous experience in the same and different sectors were largely consistent with the ASX principles and corporate governance practices.     

What affects accounting conservatism: A corporate governance perspective

This study explores the relationship between accounting conservatism and corporate governance. There are two competing perspectives about the possible relationship. One is that the demand for conservatism is greater in situations with more agency problems. Therefore, a weaker governance structure will lead to a more conservative accounting. An alternative perspective is that adequate governance results in better monitoring of management and hence will favor the implementation of conservative accounting. Using the firm-year specific C-Score developed by Khan and Watts [Khan, M., Watts, R.L., 2007. Estimation and validation of a firm-year measure of conservatism. Working Paper, Sloan School of Management, MIT, Cambridge], our empirical results indicate that firms with weaker governance structures tend to be more conservative. These findings are consistent with the view that conservatism is a substitute for other corporate governance mechanisms.     

Culture, Corporate Governance and Disclosure in Malaysian Corporations

Evidence from research conducted on corporate accounting indicates that the interaction of environmental factors in fluences disclosure practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of various corporate governance and cultural (race and education) characteristics, in addition to firm–specific factors, as possible determinants of voluntary (non–mandatory accounting and non–accounting information) disclosures in the annual reports of Malaysian listed corporations. The results of the regression analysis indicate significant associations (at the 5 per cent level) between two corporate governance variables ( viz . chair who is a non–executive director and domination of family members on boards) and the extent of voluntary disclosure. This finding has implications for corporate governance policy formulation by the Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance (MISG). One cultural factor (proportion of Malay directors on the board) is significantly associated (at the 5 per cent level) with the extent of voluntary disclosure suggesting that governmental focus on culture may solicit a response to secrecy from those who feel threatened.     

Internal governance structures and earnings management

This paper investigates the role of a firm's internal governance structure in constraining earnings management. It is hypothesized that the practice of earnings management is systematically related to the strength of internal corporate governance mechanisms, including the board of directors, the audit committee, the internal audit function and the choice of external auditor. Based on a broad cross‐sectional sample of 434 listed Australian firms, for the financial year ending in 2000, a majority of non‐executive directors on the board and on the audit committee are found to be significantly associated with a lower likelihood of earnings management, as measured by the absolute level of discretionary accruals. The voluntary establishment of an internal audit function and the choice of auditor are not significantly related to a reduction in the level of discretionary accruals. Our additional analysis, using small increases in earnings as a measure of earnings management, also found a negative association between this measure and the existence of an audit committee.     

Corporate Governance and Company Performance in Australia

This study tests whether the adoption of Australian best practice corporate governance recommendations is associated with financial performance measured by return on assets (ROA) and Tobin's Q. Results suggest that recommended corporate governance structures relating to the adoption of board sub‐committees are sound policy recommendations that enhance performance using the accounting measure ROA and the market‐based measure Tobin's Q. In contrast, the emphasis on board independence guidelines, specifically having outside independent directors, has a negative impact on ROA and Tobin's Q. However, there are conflicting significant results between the accounting and market measures for having a dual CEO/chairperson and board size.     

Accounting Conservatism and the Cost of Capital: An International Analysis

This paper examines the role of conditional accounting conservatism in mitigating the cost of equity and debt capital in an international setting. The findings are that firms domiciled in countries with more conservative financial reporting systems have lower cost of equity and debt capital. The paper further explores the cross‐sectional variation of the above relationships, finding that the negative association between conditional conservatism and the cost of equity and debt capital is more pronounced in countries with stronger legal enforcement, suggesting a complementary role between conservatism and legal institutions in capital markets. In addition, the paper finds that conservatism only reduces the cost of debt in countries where accounting‐based covenants are widely used, consistent with the argument that conditional conservatism improves the efficiency of debt contracts via accelerating covenant violations.     

Accounting conservatism and the profitability of corporate insiders

We predict that accounting conservatism influences insiders' opportunities to speculate on good and bad news, and thus, insider trading profitability. We find that greater conditional (unconditional) conservatism is associated with lower (higher) insiders' profitability from sales. We find limited evidence that conservatism influences profitability from purchases. These findings are consistent with our hypotheses on the different informational roles of conditional and unconditional conservatism, and on the asymmetric influence of conservatism over the opportunities to speculate on good versus bad news. Our research design takes into consideration the endogenous nature of insiders' trading and conservatism. The results are robust to different measures of conservatism and a number of additional analyses.