Improving earnings quality: The effect of reporting incentives and accounting standards

We investigate the different effects on earnings quality of accounting standards and reporting incentives for Germany over the period 1994 to 2005. To this end, we control for reporting incentives at the firm level, instead of the country level, by using the timing of voluntary IFRS adoption as a proxy for reporting incentives. We then include reporting incentives in an analysis of earnings management and information asymmetry. Contrary to common expectation, we find that IFRS reporting potentially decreases earnings quality on average; but also that reporting incentives appear to have lower effects on earnings quality in IFRS statements than in GGAAP statements. Thus, IFRS may lead to more homogenous earnings quality across firms.     

与国际持续趋同：国际板选择会计准则的基础

通过对我国会计准则与国际财务报告持续趋同会降低国际板会计准则选择难度问题分析，发现加快实现我国会计准则与国际持续趋同，是促使国际板选择我国会计准则的条件，是有利于保护国际板各方利益相关者利益的重要举措，也可为中国的投资者便捷地评判投资对象与作出决策提供依据。     

IAS/IFRS in Belgium: Quantitative analysis of the impact on the tax burden of companies

The adoption of International Accounting Standards and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS/IFRS) in the European Union is part of the European Commission's global tax harmonisation policy whose aim is to establish a common (consolidated) corporate tax base. The paper shows that the impact of an IAS/IFRS-based tax accounting on the effective tax burden of Belgian companies is large and not uniform across sectors. Some sectors, like construction and automotive vehicles, experience much larger increases in effective tax burdens than others. Globally the impact is relatively important. The analysis is conducted using the European Tax Analyzer (ETA), a multi-period forward looking program. In a European context, an IAS/IFRS-based tax accounting will increase the effective corporate tax burdens in all selected countries. However, it will most probably maintain the current tax competitive positions of EU countries. The expected broadening of the tax base could constitute an opportunity to reduce the corporate income tax rate without changing the overall effective burden.     

我国企业知识资本报告的模式探讨

在总结国外企业知识资本报告编制经验的基础上,坚持科学性与可操作性相结合的原则,以知识资本的H-S-R分类法为基本框架,设计了一个以定性分析为主、定量指标为辅,具有较强可操作性和系统性的知识资本报告一般模式,同时对如何提高企业自愿披露的主动性提出了相关建议。     

Union democracy and the labor-management reporting and disclosure act: An alternative reform proposal

The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959 gives union members certain democratic rights, including a decision-making role in various matters affecting their organizations’ finances. The informed exercise of these rights requires access to meaningful financial data, and the LMRDA mandates disclosure of such information. Recently, the Department of Labor has revised disclosure requirements in order to promote these union democracy objectives. This article provides an analytical framework for examining the adequacy of existing and future disclosure requirements. The analysis reveals weaknesses in the disclosure formats, and proposes a set of alternative reforms. In addition, the article attempts to facilitate the financial analysis of unions by applying standard accounting measures to a selected set of unions’ finances. In so doing, it shows the potential utility of suggested reforms.     

The Impact of Mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards Adoption on Investment Efficiency: Standards,Enforcement, and Reporting Incentives

This paper investigates whether mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is followed by a decline in firms’ suboptimal investments. On average, we find that the probability of under‐investment in capital expenditure declines for firms from 23 countries requiring mandatory adoption of IFRS relative to firms from countries that do not have such requirements; meanwhile the probability of over‐investment remains unchanged. However, this real effect becomes smaller when we control for concurrent changes to the enforcement of financial reporting along with the introduction of IFRS in some countries, suggesting that the switch in standards is only one of the drivers for the observed benefits. Moreover, we find that the reduction in suboptimal investments is driven by firms with high reporting incentives to provide transparent financial reports from countries where the existing legal and enforcement systems are strong. We further show that the real effect increases with the predicted changes in accounting comparability. Finally, we find that after mandatory IFRS adoption, capital investment becomes more value‐relevant, less sensitive to the availability of free cash flows, and more responsive to growth opportunities. Our findings provide new insights into the real effects of mandatory IFRS adoption.     

XBRL——互联网上企业报告的通用语言

网络财务报告正在普遍为企业所采用，但当今网络财务报告除少数几家上市公司外，绝大多数企业网络财务报告停留于书面财务报告格式，只是将印刷版本的财务报告转换成了电子版本而已：XBRL的应用能给企业财务报告带来一次革命：它使企业财务报告变得高效、廉价、传递实时、形式多样、报告交互。     

Covid-19 pandemic,a catalyst for aggressive earnings management by banks?

This paper investigates the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the financial reporting quality of European banks by examining the occurrence of earnings management specifically income smoothing. Using a sample of listed European banks, we employ panel estimation to compare income smoothing in the pre-pandemic period (2019Q1-2019Q4) and the pandemic period (2020Q1-2021Q4). We find that earnings management has significantly increased during the pandemic years, evidencing how the quality of financial reporting is affected during the crisis period. Our findings further suggest that amid the crisis, governance quality limits the incidence of earnings management and emphasizes how the strength of country-level governance and institutional framework affects the quality of financial reporting. Further analysis shows that though banks are inclined to manage earnings during a crisis, nevertheless, the presence of high-quality audit is a limiting factor on the incidence of earnings management in the face of crisis. Our findings which are relevant to investors, market participants, and regulators among others make a significant contribution to the accounting literature and specifically complement the strand of literature on the discretionary use of loan loss provision for earnings management during crisis.