国际会计准则和中国会计准则下的价值相关性比较——来自会计盈余和净资产账面值的证据

本文以中国 2 0 0 0年～ 2 0 0 2年既发行A股又发行B股的公司为样本 ,通过不同会计准则下会计信息的价值相关性研究为我国会计准则的国际化改革提供参考意见。在研究中 ,我们发现国际会计准则下的会计信息相对于我国会计准则下会计信息并没有显著更高的价值相关性 ,相反 ,我国会计准则下的会计信息的作用略强于国际会计准则下的会计信息 ,因此简单地要求从本土会计准则倒向国际会计准则的观点并没有得到有力支持。而且 ,不同准则间的会计信息差异具有价值相关性 ,在财务报告中披露不同会计准则下会计信息的差异是有必要的。对于B股市场 ,在披露国际会计准则下会计信息的同时披露本土国际会计准则下会计信息是有必要的 ;但在A股市场却没有找到很强的证据。此外 ,我们还发现会计信息在深市和沪市的作用明显不同。     

我国会计准则国际化协调进程及其效果研究——基于沪深AB股的经验证据

本文运用既发行A股又发行B股的公司(以下简称AB股公司)2001年会计准则改革前后的经验数据,分别从国际化的结果和过程的角度,就会计盈余质量进行定量研究,从而对改革效果做出实证性分析,籍此评价改革的合理性。研究表明:从国际化结果来看,AB股公司分别在中国会计准则与在国际财务报告准则下的盈余质量不存在显著性差异,说明了在我国目前的现实环境条件下完全采用国际财务报告准则也不能显著地提高会计盈余质量;从国际化过程来看,两种准则体系下盈余质量差异的绝对值变化显著且逐年减少,说明了我国会计准则国际化改革形式上协调促进了实质上的协调,提高了会计盈余质量。     

管理层判断对会计稳健性的替代效应

本文以我国2006年会计准则改革为背景,研究了管理层判断与会计稳健性的关系。研究结果发现,会计准则赋予管理层判断越多,公司的会计稳健性越低,管理层判断对会计稳健性具有替代效应;这种替代效应在国有企业与非国有企业中同时存在,但其在非国有企业中更为突出。进一步研究发现,我国新会计准则扩大了管理层判断空间,从而降低了市场信息不对称水平,降低了投资者对会计稳健性的需求,然而,会计准则改革的这种效应因企业股权性质的改变而发生改变。本文揭示了管理层判断对会计稳健性的替代效应,拓展了会计准则和会计稳健性方面的研究,同时还为我国会计准则改革的推进提供了重要的依据。     

A股报表与B股报表差异的分析

在上海证券交易所挂牌上市并同时发行A股股票和B股股票的企业，根据国家有关规定，在披露其定期财务报告时，除应按《股份有限公司会计制度》和《企业会计准则》编制A股报表供我国境内投资者阅读，并作为股份公司的法定会计报表外，还应同时披露依据国际会计准则编制的B股会计报表供境外投资者阅读，按不同的会计准则编制的两份报表之间存在差异时，还应披露差异的项目和产生差异的原因，以备投资者充分，全面地了解企业真实的财务信息，由于两种会计制度，会计政策，会计准则的种种差异，导致A，B股会计报表在资产，负债，股东权益，收入，费用，利润等方面存在差异，这些差异有的仅影响资产，负债的分类，有的则通过影响公司的净利润，影响到公司的净资产，对投资者而言，更应关注的是影响净资产的那些差异。     

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。     

公司治理与会计稳健性——基于上市公司的实证研究

会计稳健性是财务报告的一个重要特征和惯例，已成为会计盈余的重要质量特征之一。本文运用basu（1997）模型，将会计稳健性定义为会计报告对坏消息的确认比好消息更及时，探讨了有关公司治理的几个重要因素对会计稳健性的影响。研究发现：在影响会计稳健性的治理因素中，银行借款比例与会计稳健性正相关，国家股比例与会计稳健性负相关，在国家股比例低的分组，会计稳健性较高。发行有B股的企业，会计稳健性与只有A股的企业没有显著差异。研究表明，会计稳健性作为会计报告质量的一种量度，随着会计制度和准则的国际接轨与完善，证券市场监管的加强，取得了一定成效，但是会计准则和会计制度不能保证会计报告的质量，尚需改革国内相关的制度背景，如公司治理、法律实施环境等。     

关于会计职业判断的几点思考

我国新的会计准则将于2007年1月1日起在上市公司中施行。新的会计准则以“原则”为基础,给会计人员进行会计处理留了很大的自由度,允许会计人员根据自己的判断进行会计处理。会计人员业务素质和职业道德水平是搞好会计职业判断的前提条件,我国会计人员的现状给新会计准则的有效施行可能带来一定的障碍。另外,会计职业判断更多地体现的是企业管理当局的意图,如何减少企业管理当局利用会计职业判断的名义调节会计数据是有关部门面临的新课题。     

中外会计准则差异的实证研究

根据我国《公司法》和国际资本市场的惯例，公开发行A股和B股(或H股)的上市公司，每年既要公布按我国会计准则编制的会计报表，还需披露按国际会计准则编制的会计报表，并在报表附注中说明境内外报表差异的具体项目及其对净利润和净资产的影响。因此，以A、B(H)股公司境内外报表中的净利润差异为基础，比较研究中国     

浅谈会计职业判断在会计执业过程中的必要性

2006年新的会计准则颁布以后,我国的会计准则体系也随之实现了与国际会计惯例的大致趋同。新会计准则充分考虑到了企业经济环境的复杂性、会计事项的不确定性,给会计人员提供了较大的职业判断空间。文章述评其他学者对会计职业判断所作出的理解基础上,结合会计职业判断的相关特点,深入分析其在会计执业过程中的必要性,最后得出结论。     

会计职业判断研究

新会计准则赋予会计职业判断较大的空间.文章从会计职业判断的涵义、背景,进行会计职业判断的条件、会计职业判断的应用几方面进行了会计职业判断的研究.旨在增进会计人员对会计职业判断的理解与认识.     

The Information Environment of China''s A and B Shares: Can We Make Sense of the Numbers?

In 1990, three stock exchanges were opened in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing. Partial privatization of China's enterprises began with offering two types of shares: A shares are sold only domestically to locals and are denominated in local currency; B shares are denominated in dollars and are sold only to foreign investors. All listed firms offer A shares, but to qualify for offering B shares, the firm must prepare financial statements in accordance with International Accounting Standards and also meet other requirements. Firms issuing A shares only adopt domestic accounting regulations.As a way of generating capital funds, market segmentation has been a success. Both types of shares, however, have two different information environments. The environment of A shares appears to be dominated by local regulations and customs at the time of offering or trading. The information environment of A shares appears to be relatively unstructured and is affected by informal communication between various groups. Other than the roles played by state officials and appointed managers, external monitoring of A shares appears to be limited. Independence and social acceptance of auditing appear to be making slow progress, especially when the majority of domestic CPA firms are government owned. In contrast, the information environment for the B shares is more structured because (1) financial reporting adheres to International Accounting Standards, (2) financial statements are audited by CPA firms with international practice; and (3) foreign investors — mainly large financial institutions — also act as external monitors.We elaborate on the differences between these two information environments and suggest that accounting earnings and A share prices are not correlated, but earnings and share prices are correlated for B shares. In an event-study approach, we find results inconsistent with both hypotheses — for 1994 and 1995 we find that earnings and unexpected returns are correlated for A shares but not for B shares. The high price volatility, the significant and continuing dominance of government officials, and the thinness of trade in B shares are offered as possible explanation for these results.     

Do firms follow GAAP when they record share repurchases?

This paper examines U.S. firms' accounting for share repurchases and the accounting choice provided to Delaware-incorporated firms between the treasury and retirement methods. This accounting choice does not affect income, cash flows, or net assets, but it nevertheless affects financial reporting transparency and the allocation of equity between retained earnings and contributed capital. According to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), the accounting choice to record share repurchases should reflect management's intended disposition of the repurchased shares. We compare characteristics of Delaware-incorporated treasury and retirement firms and find that the choice between the two accounting methods is not always consistent with GAAP, but neither is it random; rather, this choice is related to a number of firm characteristics including firm growth, industry membership, trading exchange, and price–earnings ratio. We also find that a firm's accounting method for share repurchases is associated with a firm's propensity to make future share repurchases.     

Earnings Quality and Market Values of Indonesian Listed Firms

We find that earnings quality (EQ) is reliably negatively correlated with the market values of equity of firms listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange (IDX). The financial reporting process produces earnings viewed as increasingly ‘incomplete’ for valuation purposes by the capital market despite moves towards high‐quality financial reporting standards (IFRS) during the sample period 1995–2015. Time‐series analyses reveal that EQ decreases rather than increases through time. The role of earnings in valuation is replaced by other attributes, most notably net dividends. Firms that pay out dividends are valued significantly higher, and firms that issue equity are valued lower. These results are robust regardless of other accounting, market and governance controls. Large and closely held firms are valued higher than smaller firms, consistent with some aspects of the political cost hypothesis. Shares with higher idiosyncratic risk are valued higher, consistent with option value, as are shares where the volume of shares traded is more volatile. Collectively, the results indicate that the mere adoption of high‐quality accounting standards (IFRS) and other nominal changes in capital market regulations do not automatically increase the quality of the financial reporting process.     

Domestic Accounting Standards, International Accounting Standards, and the Predictability of Earnings

We investigate (1) whether the variation in accounting standards across national boundaries relative to International Accounting Standards (IAS) has an impact on the ability of financial analysts to forecast non-U.S. firms' earnings accurately, and (2) whether analyst forecast accuracy changes after firms adopt IAS. IAS are a set of financial reporting policies that typically require increased disclosure and restrict management's choices of measurement methods relative to the accounting standards of our sample firms' countries of domicile. We develop indexes of differences in countries' accounting disclosure and measurement policies relative to IAS, and document that greater differences in accounting standards relative to IAS are significantly and positively associated with the absolute value of analyst earnings forecast errors. Further, we show that analyst forecast accuracy improves after firms adopt IAS. More specifically, after controlling for changes in the market value of equity, changes in analyst following, and changes in the number of news reports, we find that the convergence in firms' accounting policies brought about by adopting IAS is positively associated with the reduction in analyst forecast errors.     

The valuation properties of earnings and book values reported under IAS,domestic GAAP and U.S. GAAP: Evidence from China,Hong Kong,Japan, Korea and Singapore

This paper examines whether earnings or book value is the dominant valuation accounting measure for companies reporting under alternative accounting standards — International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) or domestic accounting standards of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Singapore. Our sample consists of domestic firms in the five Asian countries and firms from these countries cross-listed in the United States as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) from 2002 to 2011. For domestic firms, book value is more informative than earnings for firms from Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan and Korea during 2002–2011 although their accounting standards are influenced by different systems. For the ADR sample, book value is more informative than earnings for U.S. GAAP reporters and reconcilers during 2002–2007. However, earnings are more informative than book value for U.S. GAAP reconcilers from China. After 2007, ADRs in our sample from Hong Kong, Japan and Korea continued to file under U.S. GAAP. Some ADRs from China filed under U.S. GAAP and some filed under IFRS. Earnings are more informative than book value for IFRS users; however, book value has higher incremental value relevance than earnings for U.S. GAAP users. We contribute to prior research by providing evidence on the valuation properties based on accounting measures reported under different GAAPs for the Asian countries.     

Do earnings reported under IFRS tell us more about future earnings and cash flows?

We contribute to the debate about the relative benefits and costs of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption by examining whether earnings persistence and the association between current accounting earnings and future cash flows differ for firms reporting under IFRS versus firms reporting under United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) and firms reporting under non-U.S. domestic accounting standards (DAS). Using samples comprised of 58,832 firm-year observations drawn from 33 countries from 2002 through 2008, we find that positive earnings reported under IFRS are no more or less persistent than earnings reported under U.S. GAAP but losses reported under IFRS are less persistent than losses reported under U.S. GAAP. Moreover, we find that earnings reported under IFRS are no more or less persistent and are no more or less associated with future cash flows than earnings reported under non-U.S. DAS. However, we find that earnings reported under U.S. GAAP are more closely associated with future cash flows than earnings reported under IFRS. This is important if a key role of reported earnings is to help investors form expectations about future cash flows. These results should be of interest to academics and standard-setters as they debate the merits of transitioning to IFRS, and to parties who use reported earnings to form expectations about future earnings and cash flows.     

International Accounting Standards and Accounting Quality

We examine whether application of International Accounting Standards (IAS) is associated with higher accounting quality. The application of IAS reflects combined effects of features of the financial reporting system, including standards, their interpretation, enforcement, and litigation. We find that firms applying IAS from 21 countries generally evidence less earnings management, more timely loss recognition, and more value relevance of accounting amounts than do matched sample firms applying non‐U.S. domestic standards. Differences in accounting quality between the two groups of firms in the period before the IAS firms adopt IAS do not account for the postadoption differences. Firms applying IAS generally evidence an improvement in accounting quality between the pre‐ and postadoption periods. Although we cannot be sure our findings are attributable to the change in the financial reporting system rather than to changes in firms' incentives and the economic environment, we include research design features to mitigate effects of both.     

Accounting Quality in Private Firms During the Transition Towards International Standards

We study the historical development of Slovenian Accounting Standards (SAS) and their association with accounting quality (AQ). We focus on private firms where the financial reporting process is characterised by low demand for high-quality reporting. We investigate three distinct editions of SAS since 1994 and test how their development towards international standards is related to AQ. Aggregate earnings management measures indicate that the use of accounting discretion decreases with less earnings smoothing over time. The main features of AQ have been consistent throughout historical development. Asymmetric timeliness of earnings, the ability of earnings to predict future cash flows, and the ability of accruals to mitigate mismatching are all present throughout. We also document typical departures from properties of high AQ. For example, accruals do not (always) facilitate timely recognition of losses. However, these can be attributed to the overwhelming influence of reporting incentives (e.g. taxation, debt, size) rather than to the (lower) quality of accounting standards.     

The Effects of International Financial Reporting Standards on the Accounts and Accounting Quality of Australian Firms: A Retrospective Study

We examine the effect of Australian equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the accounts and accounting quality of 1,065 listed firms, relying on retrospective reconciliations between Australian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (AGAAP) and IFRS. We find that IFRS increases total liabilities, decreases equity and more firms have earnings decreases than increases. IFRS earnings and equity are not more value relevant than AGAAP earnings and equity and while adjustments for changes in accounting for provisions and intangibles other than goodwill are value relevant, they weaken associations with market value. Goodwill adjustments improve associations with market value. We also find that the reconciliation note for the earnings adjustments contained no new information.     

Value relevance of international accounting standards harmonization: Evidence from A- and B-share markets in China

Applying both the price-levels model and the lagged-price-deflated returns model, we investigated the incremental value relevance of the reconciliation of accounts from the Chinese Accounting Standards (CAS) to the International Accounting Standards (IAS) by those Chinese listed companies that have simultaneously issued A-shares and B-shares. In addition, we examined the usefulness of accounting numbers (earnings and book values) and their value relevance to the A- and B-share markets in China. The study finds that earnings and book values of owners’ equity determined under CAS are more relevant accounting information for the purpose of determining the prices of A- and B-shares. The CAS-based earnings changes were reflected in stock returns in the B-share market, while the CAS-based earnings were closely associated with stock returns in the A-share market. However, the study found that the reconciliation of earnings and book values from CAS to IAS basis is partially value-relevant, mainly to stock prices in the B-share market, while the earnings reconciliation is generally not value-added to stock returns in either the A- or the B-share market. The study results suggest that accounting numbers based on domestic accounting standards, in contrast to IAS, are more value-relevant in the Chinese stock market at present.