Big Six auditors and audit quality: The Korean evidence

This study investigates the association between discretionary accruals and Big Six and non-Big Six auditors, and the direction of auditor change. We hypothesize that there is no significant difference in discretionary accruals between Big Six and non-Big Six clients when there is low incentive for auditors to provide high-quality audits, as in Korea.Upon examination of the discretionary accruals of firms listed on the Korean Stock Exchange from 1994 to 1998, we find there is no significant difference between the discretionary accruals of firms with Big Six and non-Big Six auditors. This holds true for firms that switch from non-Big Six to Big Six auditors and vice versa. These resources imply that there may be no difference in audit quality between Big Six and non-Big Six auditors in Korea. This is consistent with other studies in Korea, while inconsistent with the findings of previous studies on audit quality in other countries.     

机构投资者持股和会计盈余质量

本文从会计盈余质量的角度来研究机构投资者(’在公司治理中的作用。我们从盈余管理程度、盈余信息含量和盈余稳健性等三个方面来衡量会计盈余的质量。三方面的研究结果显示,机构投资者持股有助于改善会计盈余的质量:机构投资者持股公司的会计盈余质量显著高于其他公司,并且会计盈余的质量随着机构投资者持股比例的增加而增加。进一步研究发现,机构投资者还能够缓解大股东对会计盈余信息含量的恶化,起到一定的制衡作用。本文的研究表明,机构投资者能够在一定程度上改善上市公司的盈余质量,其快速成长有助于公司治理结构的改善,也有助于资本市场信息披露环境的良性发展。     

Market perceptions of discretionary accruals by debt renegotiating firms during economic downturn

This study addresses how a stock market prices earnings components around a sudden and severe economic downturn. In particular, the study examines the market valuation of discretionary accruals for debt renegotiating Malaysian firms during the Asian financial crisis. Our analysis shows that negative discretionary accruals for debt renegotiating firms are associated with higher market values of equity and are not related to the firms' future earnings. These findings are consistent with investors placing a positive value on the probability that negative accruals increase the likelihood that concessions can be extracted from lenders during renegotiation. In contrast, discretionary accruals for a control sample of non-debt renegotiating firms are not significantly associated with stock prices but are positively associated with future earnings.     

Incentives for risk reporting — A discretionary disclosure and cheap talk approach

This paper adopts and reviews discretionary disclosure and cheap talk models to analyze risk reporting incentives and their relation to regulation. Given its inherent discretion, risk reporting depends on disclosure incentives. To assess these incentives the analytical models consider risk reporting as an endogenous feature, thereby providing a benchmark to discuss regulatory attempts. Particularly, discretionary disclosure models refer to verified disclosure, e.g., on risk factors or risk management, whereas cheap talk models refer to unverified disclosure, like managerial forecasts on the impact of risk factors. This provides an analytically-based framework for discussion. Unlike prior literature, which focuses on disclosure cost, I argue that uncertainty of information endowment and issues of credible communication can explain restricted risk reporting observed empirically. Linking regulatory attempts to these restrictions implies that regulation may mitigate the incentives-driven restrictions to some extent, but can have adverse effects on risk reporting. I particularly discuss the link between effective risk monitoring and the precision of risk reporting; the ex post assessment and usefulness of managerial forecasts on impacts of risk factors; the claimed decreasing cost of capital by mandatory risk reporting; and the threat of self-fulfilling prophecies. While the discussion has implications for both specific risk reporting requirements and empirical research, overall results suggest that we should not overestimate the informativeness of risk reporting even in a regulated environment.     

IDENTIFYING THE MODERATOR FACTORS OF FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE IN GREEK MUNICIPALITIES

The use of financial ratios is a widespread method for assessing the financial performance of private sector companies. However, the application of an analogous exercise in the public sector is a less straightforward one. In the later case it is a multifaceted task that involves judgments about the interplay of complex social, organizational and financial factors. In this paper we use accrual end of the year financial statements data of Greek Municipalities for the period 2002–2004 to compute nine commonly used performance assessment financial ratios. We find corroborative evidence that factors, which are exogenous to the municipalities’ control, such as their wealth and size, have statistically significant impact on ratio values. Thus, as financial ratios are significantly influenced by socio‐economic factors like municipal wealth and size, cross sectional comparisons on the basis of these ratios should be made with caution and performed for municipalities that exhibit similarities in terms of size and wealth.     

现金制与应计制财务报表有用性的问卷调查分析

中国的《企业会计准则——现金流量表》要求所有企业从1998年开始编制现金流量表，它克服了传统财务报表所体现的、与应计制会计确认和计量程序相关联的局限性。但是现金流量表、资产负债表和利润表的决策有用性是否存在差异，还缺乏经验证据。本文设计调查问卷，要求财务报表使用者在21种决策背景下封三大报表的有用性追行评级。结果表明，现金流量表在许多决策背景下可以与利润表和资产负债表相媲美，而在以下决策背景下，现金流量表的评级大大高于其他两张报表：评价流动性，评价短期偿债能力，评价支付股利的能力，评价净利润的质量，突出净利润与现金余额之间的差异，预测财务危机，以及预测未来现金流量的金额与时间。     

试论我国现行预算会计的改革

预算会计作为我国会计体系的一个分支,与企业会计的发展相比,已到了必须改革的关键时刻.建立我国的政府与非营利组织会计体系,在政府会计中引入"权责发生制"等,是我国预算会计将面临的又一次重大改革.     

两税合并、税收筹划与盈余管理方式选择

文章以2007年的两税合并为背景,研究上市公司出于税收筹划的目的如何选择盈余管理方式。研究发现,税率下降公司由于税率下降幅度较大,税收筹划收益较高,因此进行了显著向下的应计盈余管理,而没有选择真实盈余管理方式;而税率上升公司则由于存在5年的过渡期,税收筹划收益较低,因此既没有进行显著的应计盈余管理,也没有进行显著的真实盈余管理。这意味着上市公司在进行税收筹划时会综合权衡各种避税方式的成本收益,进而选择最合适的避税方式。政府部门在制定税收政策时必须预先考虑企业可能的税收筹划策略,以达到预期的政策效果。     

Budgetary Accounting in National Governments: Anglo versus American Accounting

Abstract: This paper offers an understanding of the US federal budgeting and accounting system, in context. The system is unique among the major Anglophone countries, in being both cash‐based and obligation‐based, thereby providing what can be termed a polar opposite case to an accrual‐based system, the technicalities of which the paper explains. The paper uses, as a comparator, the UK government's cash‐based and accrual‐based system, also in context. This shows that the US system is primarily a system of control by the legislature, whereas the UK's is primarily one of control by the executive. The paper analyses the long history of institutions of the US federal government defending the obligation basis in the face of accrual‐based assaults; the obligation basis has remained resilient.     

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.