风险投资、联合差异和创业板IPO公司会计信息质量

基于新兴市场的制度背景,本文以2009—2011在创业板上市的IPO公司为样本,综合动态分析了风险投资和风险投资联合差异对IPO前和锁定期结束当年的盈余管理的影响。研究发现,风险投资的参与影响了IPO公司的盈余管理,具体表现在风险投资的参与降低IPO前的盈余管理,以实现在锁定期结束当年的盈余反转,从而获得更高的股份减持收益。实证结果支持风险投资IPO行为的道德风险假设。在此基础上,研究还发现,在我国当期环境下,风险投资联合的差异增加了IPO前的盈余程度,却同时降低了锁定期结束当年的盈余管理程度,这说明风险投资联合并没有恶化风险投资的盈余管理,相反起到了抑制的作用。     

When and why do IPO firms manage earnings?

There is significant disagreement about whether, when, and why IPO firms manage earnings. We precisely identify the timing and motives behind earnings management by IPO firms. The period around an IPO is characterized by two events: the IPO itself and the lockup expiration. Both the raising of capital at the IPO and the exit by pre-IPO shareholders at lockup expiration create incentives for firms to manage earnings. To disentangle the effect of these events, we examine quarterly, rather than annual, abnormal accruals. We find no evidence of income-increasing earnings management before the IPO. However, IPO firms exhibit positive abnormal accruals in the quarter before and the quarter of the lockup expiration. Positive abnormal accruals are concentrated in less scrutinized firms and firms with high selling by pre-IPO shareholders. Moreover, we find that these accruals subsequently reverse and that such reversals contribute to long-run IPO underperformance.     

Earnings management in the pre-IPO process: Biases and predictors

We analyze a sample of 3,293 IPOs from 29 countries to investigate the firm, industry, and country characteristics related to earnings management during the IPO process. We find that IPO firms tend to have significantly positive discretionary accruals (DCA) both prior to and after the IPO, suggesting that IPO firms tend to engage in pre-IPO earnings management. However, we also find that using a proxy for earnings management in the IPO year may lead to biased conclusions concerning pre-IPO earnings management. Firms that are more likely to need access to capital markets in the future (firms with high leverage, and firms backed by a venture capitalist) are less likely to engage in pre-IPO earnings management. Firms operating in countries with a superior rule of law are also less likely to engage in earnings management. Lastly, we find that firms may engage in pre-IPO earnings management in part to avoid returning to the capital markets to raise more funds (capital market staging). This result is robust to possible endogeneity bias stemming from management self-selection.     

Forecasts in IPO Prospectuses: The Effect of Corporate Governance on Earnings Management

Prior research suggests that managers may use earnings management to meet voluntary earnings forecasts. We document the extent of earnings management undertaken within Canadian Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and study the extent to which companies with better corporate governance systems are less likely to use earnings management to achieve their earnings forecasts. In addition, we test other factors that differentiate forecasting from non‐forecasting firms, and assess the impact of forecasting and corporate governance on future cash flow prediction. We find that firms with better corporate governance are less likely to include a voluntary earnings forecast in their IPO prospectus. In addition, we find that while IPO firms use accruals management to meet forecasts; the informativeness of the discretionary accruals depends on whether or not the firm would have missed its forecast without the use of discretionary accruals.     

Earnings Management in IPO Lockup and Insider Trading: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper examines the hypothesis that the timing of lockup expiration is crucial to earnings management (EM) behavior in the period after an initial public offering (IPO). Taiwan's unique two-stage lockup regulations make the Taiwanese sample an excellent candidate for examining this hypothesis. Three main results are reached. First, we find positive discretionary accruals (DAs) from the IPO quarter to the quarter after the expiration of the first-stage lockup. The DA in the quarter of the second-stage lockup expiration is significantly positive. The evidence shows that the lockup provision is key in the findings of significant EM in the IPO year and the following year. We also find a positive association between DAs in first-stage lockups and subsequent insider selling activity, indicating that insiders' selling after lockup expiration accounts for EM in the lockup period. Third, the extent of EM in first-stage lockup is negatively related to that around the IPO, consistent with the reversal nature of DAs.     

The effects of venture capital syndicate diversity on earnings management and performance of IPOs in the US and UK: An institutional perspective

This study examines the extent to which principal–principal agency conflicts within venture capital (VC) syndicates lead to additional principal–agent conflicts in IPO firms in two institutional contexts. Using a matched sample of 274 VC-backed IPOs in the US and the UK, it shows that the diversity of a VC syndicate increases pre-IPO discretionary current accruals, used as a proxy for earnings management, but the impact of such diversity is higher in the US. There is also evidence of higher underpricing and lower aftermarket performance in firms with higher earnings management and VC diversity, and these negative performance effects are also higher in the US. Our findings indicate that local and informal institutions have a significant effect on multiple agency conflicts in IPO firms and performance outcomes.     

Monitoring Role of Venture Capital in the Initial Public Offerings: Evidence from Korea

Because the government has initiated the development of venture capital firms in Korea, independent venture capital firms have been significantly influenced by government regulations and interventions; in contrast, corporations have made venture investments internally to avoid the regulations. This study investigates whether the Korean institutional environment harms the monitoring role of independent venture capital firms, while it does not significantly impact corporate venture capital firms. In an IPO setting, we find that earnings management (long-term performance) significantly decreases (increases) with the ownership of corporate venture capital firms. However, we do not find a significant relation between the ownership of independent venture capital firms and earnings management or long-term performance. The results suggest that Korean independent venture capital firms do not play a role in monitoring their investee companies; in contrast, corporate venture capital firms play a monitoring role.     

The impact of audit quality on real and accrual earnings management around IPOs

We examine the relation between audit quality and the earnings management activities of IPO firms. The impact of high quality auditors on real earnings management has been researched in a number of settings e.g. SEOs. However, to date, there has been no work on the effect of high quality auditors on real activities-based manipulation around IPOs. We examine UK IPOs between 1998 and 2008 and find evidence that high quality auditors constrain the use of real activities manipulation that occurs via the management of discretionary expenses. We also find evidence, consistent with prior research, that high quality auditors constrain the manipulation of discretionary accruals. Crucially, we find IPO firms audited by high quality auditors undertake sales-based manipulation in order to manage earnings upward at the end of the IPO year. The presence of high quality auditors is not, therefore, sufficient to constrain all forms of earnings management.     

Earnings management of initial public offering firms: evidence from regulation changes in China

Discretionary current accruals of Chinese initial public offering (IPO) firms decreased after the abolition of fixed‐price offering systems that directly linked offering price to reported earnings. Results suggest IPO firms that decrease managerial ownership manage earnings upward during the fixed‐price offering period, but this relationship disappeared after the introduction of a book‐building system. We also find that bank debt is negatively related to discretionary current accruals during the fixed‐price offering period, but no relation exists for the book‐building period. Leverage has a significant positive relationship with earnings management. However, this finding is potentially attributable to nonoffering price objectives or endogeneity biases.     

Do Insiders Manipulate Earnings When They Sell Their Shares in an Initial Public Offering?

In this article we examine whether insider share selling in an initial public offering (IPO) influences R&D expenditures. Insiders (managers and venture capitalists) who sell their pre‐offering shareholdings might try to increase the IPO offer price (1) by overinvesting in R&D to signal the firm's prospects (the signaling hypothesis) or (2) by underinvesting in R&D to increase current reported earnings (the earnings fixation hypothesis). We find that, for a sample of 243 IPOs from 1986 to 1990, change in R&D spending in the year of the IPO is negatively related to managerial selling. Because reductions in R&D spending increase current earnings at the expense of future earnings, our evidence suggests that managers believe that investors place more emphasis on current earnings and less emphasis on R&D and therefore spend less on R&D. We also document a positive association between discretionary current accruals in the offering year and managerial selling, suggesting that selling managers manipulate accruals as well.     

Earnings management and initial public offerings: The case of the depository industry

In a typical IPO, insiders are “net sellers” of IPO shares; however, in a demutualizing thrift, insiders are “net buyers” of IPO shares. Using a sample of mutual depository IPOs, we find evidence consistent with earnings management prior to the conversion of mutual thrifts. We find on average that mutuals report lower ROA and increased loan loss provisions and loan loss reserves in the period prior to the demutualization. Using a two-stage approach, we also find that the level of discretionary loan loss provisions and discretionary reserves are positively related to both the level of insider participation in the IPO and the first-day returns to investors. Our results are consistent with management of mutual thrifts benefiting at the conversion from reduced pre-IPO earnings and book equity resulting from earnings management.     

Does pedigree matter? Earnings quality of U.S. listed domestic firms via reverse mergers

This paper examines earnings quality of U.S. domestic firms that access capital markets via a reverse merger transaction (RM firms) compared to those via the more traditional initial public offering (IPO firms) during the period from 1997 to 2011. In order to mitigate confounding effects of legal regime, law enforcement, and culture, we require both the acquiring and target firms to be incorporated and headquartered in the U.S. to be included in our sample. We also use the Heckman (1976) procedure to control for self-selection bias. To capture earnings quality, we use a battery of measures established in prior literature, including discretionary accruals, discretionary revenues, real activities earnings management, and accrual estimation errors. Our measures have both convergent and discriminant validity and therefore appear to capture earnings quality fairly well. We find consistent evidence that U.S. domestic RM firms have lower earnings quality compared with U.S. IPO firms. Our evidence suggests that investors and other stakeholders should take into account the fact and consequences of the method that firms use to access capital markets in their investment decision making process.     

Highly Valued Equity and Discretionary Accruals

Abstract:  Overvalued equity provides a strong incentive for managers to report earnings that do not disappoint the market (  Jensen, 2005 ). We find that this can be extended to highly valued equity more generally. In the year following the classification as highly valued and compared to firms with less extreme valuations, highly valued firms have significantly higher discretionary accruals and exhibit a more pronounced positive association between discretionary accruals and proxies for the likelihood of failing to meet earnings targets. These findings are consistent with the use of discretionary accruals to manage earnings in support of extreme valuation. Because highly valued equity will likely result in CEOs with valuable stock and stock option portfolios, we test whether and show that the overvalued equity incentive is incremental to a CEO's equity portfolio incentive. One implication is that directors and audit committees should be especially on guard for possible earnings management when a firm has extremely high valuation multiples and when the CEO has a lot of equity at risk.     

社会资本、法律保护与IPO盈余管理

本文引入"社会资本"这一社会学概念,首次从微观视角实证研究我国各省社会资本水平差异对上市公司IPO盈余管理行为的影响,并进而深入探讨社会资本与法律保护这两种外部约束机制在影响公司盈余管理决策方面的相互替代作用。结果发现:在社会资本水平较高的省份,上市公司更不可能进行IPO盈余管理,而且社会资本与法律保护在公司IPO盈余管理决策中所起的作用是可替代的,即在我国法律保护比较薄弱的地区,社会资本对IPO盈余管理行为的约束作用更加显著;反之反是。本文的研究不仅拓展了盈余管理的研究领域,而且丰富了社会资本与法律保护替代作用的研究。     

Earnings management following chief executive officer changes: the effect of contemporaneous chairperson and chief financial officer appointments

Using a sample of listed Australian firms from 1999 to 2007, we examine the relationship between discretionary accruals and concurrent senior management appointments. Employing panel data regression models and focusing on a measure of discretionary accruals that excludes the effect of transparent write‐downs such as restructuring charges, we find that chief executive officer (CEO) appointments, as a general phenomenon, are not significantly associated with opaque earnings management in the year of appointment or the following year. However, we find that CEO changes accompanied by a concurrent change in board chairperson are associated with significant income‐decreasing earnings management in the year of appointment. We detect no significant relationship between contemporaneous CEO and chief financial officer changes and discretionary accruals. We find no evidence of earnings management in the first compete financial period following CEO appointment, regardless of whether or not concurrent Chair or chief financial officer appointments occurred.     

首次公开发行、盈余管理与发审委审核

本文考察了IPO过程中的盈余管理行为以及申请首次公开发行企业的盈余管理是否影响发审委的决策。我们以2006-2009年成功上市的企业为样本,发现发行企业在上市前和上市当年存在异常高的收益率,但上市后收益率出现大幅下滑。进一步分析发现,该收益率变化模式是管理者利用应计项目在上市前操纵盈利的结果,而不是来自经营现金流。以我国首次公开发行制度为背景,我们采用2006-2009年申请IPO的企业为样本,发现以保护投资者为目标的发审委在审核过程中考虑到盈余管理因素,盈余管理程度越高的企业越难获得通过。     

Do UK firms manage earnings to meet dividend thresholds?

This paper examines earnings management by dividend-paying firms in cases where pre-managed earnings would fall below the expected dividend, and by non-dividend paying firms aiming to avoid reporting losses. We find that within the UK market the likelihood of upward earnings management is significantly greater in the former case than the latter, though both are drivers for earnings management. Large firms are less likely to upwardly manage earnings to reach dividend thresholds, consistent with prior UK evidence on the ability of the largest firms to avoid restrictive debt covenants. We also find that earnings management is more clearly observable through examining working capital discretionary accruals than through examining total discretionary accruals.     

The Effects of Public Venture Capital Investments on Corporate Governance: Evidence From IPO Firms in Emerging Markets

This study examines the impact of public venture capital (hereafter PVC) investments on corporate governance of initial public offering (hereafter IPO) firms in emerging markets. Using data collected from Taiwan PVC investments during 1996–2005, we analyse three corporate governance features in IPO firms: earnings management, board characteristics, and excess control by controlling shareholders. We find that PVC‐backed firms use fewer accounting accruals in their IPO financial statements than non‐PVC‐backed firms. This result suggests that PVC‐backed IPO firms engage in less earnings management than non‐PVC‐backed IPO firms. We also find PVC‐backed firms tend to set up their boards with fewer non‐independent directors and supervisors at IPO. This result indicates that PVC‐backed IPO firms have better board structures than non‐PVC‐backed IPO firms. Finally, we find that controlling shareholders are less likely to exert excess control in PVC‐backed firms than in non‐PVC‐backed firms. Overall, our results indicate that PVC investments add value to new IPO firms not only in financing their capital needs but also in creating better corporate governance structures in emerging markets.     

Earnings Management and the Long-Run Underperformance of Firms Following Convertible Bond Offers

Abstract:  This paper examines whether the long-run underperformance of convertible bond issuers can be explained by earnings management, as reflected in discretionary current accruals around the time of the offer. Consistent with the earnings management hypothesis, we find that convertible issuers who adjust their discretionary current accruals to report higher net income in the issue year will generally experience inferior operating and stock return performance over the five-year post-issue period. Our findings indicate that there is some temporary overvaluation of convertible issuers by the stock market, but that the resultant disappointed investors will subsequently correct their valuation errors. The similarity of our results to those reported within the prior literature on initial public offers (IPOs) and seasoned equity offers (SEOs) suggests that the earnings management hypothesis is not unique to stock offers, but that it actually extends to convertible bond offers.     

Predicting Stock Market Returns with Aggregate Discretionary Accruals

We find that the positive relation between aggregate accruals and one‐year‐ahead market returns documented in Hirshleifer, Hou, and Teoh [2009] is driven by discretionary accruals but not normal accruals. The return forecasting power of aggregate discretionary accruals is robust to choices of sample periods, return measurements, estimation methods, business condition and risk premium proxies, and accrual models used to isolate discretionary accruals. Our extensive analysis shows that aggregate discretionary accruals, in sharp contrast to aggregate normal accruals, contain little information about overall business conditions or aggregate cash flows and display little co‐movement with ICAPM‐motivated risk premium proxies. Our findings imply that aggregate discretionary accruals likely reflect aggregate fluctuations in earnings management, thereby favoring the behavioral explanation that managers time aggregate equity markets to report earnings.