上市公司盈余管理研究

盈余管理是现代会计理论研究中的一个重要领域,本文在分析盈余管理的涵义、产生的条件和动机以及盈余管理的利弊基础上,提出从会计准则与会计制度、公司治理结构以及业绩考核和报酬制度等方面来探讨如何规范我国上市公司盈余管理行为。     

Who Gains from the Demographic Dividend? Forecasting Income by Age

Changes in the population age structure are known to influence the total income per person, but little is known about whether the changes are equally shared across the population or are concentrated on particular age groups and/or birth cohorts. The answer to this question has potentially important implications for income inequality, human capital investment, and fertility decision-making. We propose a new model of intergenerational transfers which distinguishes between the effects of changes in population structure and the effects of changes in family age structure. Using age-specific data from annual income and expenditure surveys of Taiwan between 1978 and 1998, we show that changes in age structure have had a very favorable effect on Taiwan's income growth. The gains are not equally shared by all age groups, however. Children and young adults have benefited the most, while the elderly have benefited the least. The population and family age structures have independent effects on per capita income; the effect of the population age structure is most important. Generational differences in per capita income are closely related to intergenerational differences in earnings, suggesting only a weak form of altruism. Finally, we predict that, on average, population aging will adversely influence the per capita income growth in Taiwan in the coming decades.     

会计盈余及时性对公司治理机制影响的实证研究

本文通过考查1997年到2004年间上市公司治理机制代理变量与会计盈余及时性指标之间截面数据相关关系,探讨治理机制是否随会计盈余及时性而变化。结果基本支持了本文的假设:董事对高成本信息收集和整理的需求与会计系统信息的有用性是倒数关系,外部股东对高成本信息收集和整理的需求与会计系统信息的有用性是正相关关系;会计系统信息有用性的重要决定因素是解释股权价值现时变化的程度;以高成本的监督活动为特点的特殊治理结构是股东和董事对高成本信息收集和整理需求的反应。     

亏损上市公司盈余管理实证分析

亏损对上市公司的负面影响非常大,处于亏损边缘或可能微亏的上市公司会通过盈余管理手段来操纵盈利,以避免成为被关注对象或暂停上市或终止上市。本文以我国连亏两年、连亏三年又扭亏的106家上市公司为样本,通过构建模型进行了实证检验,总结出亏损上市公司进行盈余管理的结论并提出建议,以期为证券监管提供经验证据。     

Cross-sectional earnings risk and occupational sorting: The role of risk attitudes

This paper investigates to what extent individuals' risk preferences are correlated with the cross-sectional earnings risk of their occupation. We exploit data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which contains a direct survey question about willingness to take risks that has been shown to be a behaviorally valid measure of risk aversion. As a measure of earnings risk, we use the cross-sectional variation in earnings that is left unexplained by human capital variables in Mincerian wage regressions. Our evidence shows that individuals with low willingness to take risks are more likely to work in occupations with low earnings risk. This pattern is found regardless of the level of occupation categories, region, gender and labor market experience.     

Earnings management and initial public offerings: Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper presents one of the first studies of earnings management by initial public offering (IPO) firms in a European country. Using a sample of 64 Dutch IPOs, we investigate the pattern of discretionary current accruals (DCA) over time. We find that managers manage their company's earnings in the first year as a public company but not in the years before the IPO. We also examine the impact of earnings management on the long-run stock price performance of IPOs. We find a negative relation between the size of the DCA in the first year as a public company and long-run stock price performance over the next 3 years. A number of additional tests support these findings.     

The effect of differential accounting conservatism on the “over-valuation” of high-tech firms relative to low-tech firms

This paper examines systematic differences in the level of accounting conservatism between high-tech and low-tech firms. Relying on the recent development in theoretical models and empirical measures of conservatism, we investigate conservative accounting practices and earnings management behavior in high-tech and low-tech firms. The results based on comparisons of cumulative nonoperating accruals, regression coefficients from the income timeliness models in Basu (1997), the distribution of earnings, and discretionary accruals between the two groups are consistent with a higher level of accounting conservatism in high-tech firms vis-à-vis low-tech firms. Additional analyses show that the effect of conservatism cannot be used as a defense for the over-valuation of high-tech firms.     

The impact of tax holidays on earnings management: An empirical study of corporate reporting behavior in a developing-economy framework

This study investigates whether foreign investment enterprises (FIEs) in China alter their corporate reporting behavior in response to a known schedule of tax-rate increases. The context of this investigation is a tax-incentive scheme that allows firms to pay taxes at a reduced rate for a limited period of time, and then at a higher rate when this period expires. If managers attempt to maximize firm value by minimizing tax costs, then the spread of tax rates in the periods surrounding the rate change may provide a substantial incentive for them to accelerate revenue and defer expenses. Consistent with this hypothesis, the empirical results indicate that firms report significantly higher discretionary current accruals for the years before tax-rate increases. The evidence, which indicates that firms manage earnings upward to take advantage of lower tax rates that are available in certain years, has important implications for tax policymakers.     

A study of earnings-management motives in the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models: The Canadian and French cases

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that potentially influence earnings-management policy with reference to the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models. Canada and France, respectively, belong to those different socio-economic environments. Earnings-management practices detected in those countries are expected to be affected by specific socio-economic features of the Anglo-American and the Euro-Continental environments. We explain earnings-management practices by incentives suggested in the literature to reveal which motives are prominent within each environment.We tested our earnings-management motives (EMM) model using appropriate panel-estimation techniques over 1674 Canadian and 1470 French firm-year observations. Our results provide evidence that incentives for earnings management for French firms are specifically linked to contractual debt costs and effective tax rate. However, Canadian firms show specific incentives matched with a dynamic capital market. Issuing equity is a strong motive for earnings management in Canadian firms.     

Earnings Quality under Rules‐ versus Principles‐based Accounting Standards: A Test of the Skinner Hypothesis / LA QUALITÉ DES RÉSULTATS SELON QUE LES NORMES COMPTABLES SONT AXÉES SUR LES RÈGLES OU SUR LES PRINCIPES: VÉRIFICATION DE L'HYPOTHÈSE DE SKINNER*

We provide preliminary evidence, consistent with Skinner (1995), that Canada's relatively principles‐based GAAP yield higher accrual quality than the United States' relatively rules‐based GAAP. These results stem from a comparison of the Dechow‐Dichev (2002) measure of accrual quality for cross‐listed Canadian firms reporting under both Canadian and U.S. GAAP. However, we document lower accrual quality for Canadian firms reporting under U.S. GAAP than for U.S. firms, which are subject to stronger U.S. oversight, reporting under U.S. GAAP. The latter results suggest that stronger U.S. oversight compensates for inferior accrual quality associated with rules‐based GAAP. Consistent with the positive effect of Canada's principles‐based GAAP and the offsetting negative effect of Canada's weaker oversight, we find no overall difference in accrual quality between Canadian firms reporting under Canadian GAAP and U.S. firms reporting under U.S. GAAP. Our results imply that (1) policymakers who wish to compare the effectiveness of oversight across jurisdictions must control for the GAAP effect; and (2) accounting standard‐setters who wish to compare the effectiveness of principles‐ versus rules‐based GAAP must control for oversight strength.