Does disaggregation of fair value information increase the value relevance of the fair value hierarchy?

In response to pressures from Congress, the SEC and investors, the FASB issued ASU 2010-06, Improving Disclosures about Fair Value Measurement. ASU 2010-06 mandates that firms provide disaggregated fair value information by class of financial instruments under each level of the fair value hierarchy. Using financial statements of publicly traded banks for the first quarters of 2009 and 2010, this study examines whether providing class-level information increases the value relevance of the fair value hierarchy. In support of our hypothesis, we find that fair value relevance increases under ASU 2010-06.     

Value for Money and Risk Relationships in Public–Private Partnerships: Evaluating Program‐based Evidence

Value for money – VfM (the provision of improved public infrastructure and services at lower cost) – is a central rationale for the deployment of public–private partnerships (P3s). However, it remains unclear how VfM is actually created in P3s. There are several issues that surround the ex ante evaluation conducted during P3 assessment, including: transparency of the process, engagement of stakeholders, potential restrictions on current and future public sector flexibility, and political influences that call into question the legitimacy of the process. This study examines these issues using Alberta's P3 projects executed since 2003, and interviews 35 key participants and stakeholders. The findings suggest that while the transfer of risk from the public to the private sector is a key driver of VfM, it may overstate the extent to which planning related risks can be transferred. This paper recommends enhanced VfM component disclosures and transparency as the evaluation process evolves. Furthermore, a more rigorous approach to risk conceptualisation and valuation should be adopted. Risk allocation should be about managing not only occurrence, but also impact of the risk factor. Finally, political interference must be moderated to allow for the optimal realisation of the best possible choices presented by P3 deployments.     

The Effect of SFAS No. 131 on the Cross-segment Variability of Profits Reported by Multiple Segment Firms

Our study assesses whether SFAS No. 131 improved disclosure about the diversity of multiple segment firms’ operations. We find a post-SFAS No. 131 increase in cross-segment variability of segment profits, an increase in the association between reported and inherent cross-segment variability, and an increase in association between reported variability and capital market incentives to disclose. We interpret the results as evidence that SFAS No. 131 increased the transparency of segment profitability disclosures, and as indicating SFAS No. 131 allowed firms depending more on external financing to disclose more about differences in segment profitability.

Deprival value and fair value: a reinterpretation and a reconciliation

Measurement is an important current issue for financial accounting standard-setters. Current values are increasingly replacing historical cost measures, but an important unresolved issue is the precise form that current value should take. In this paper two alternative measurement bases that have appeared in accounting standards. Deprivai Value (sometimes called Value to the Business) and Fair Value, are explained and compared. They are then reconciled by making the following three adjustments to their conventional definitions.

(1) In the case of Deprival Value, situations in which net realisable value exceeds replacement cost imply that there is a profitable redevelopment or redeployment opportunity, so that net realisable value is regarded as the appropriate measure of Deprivai Value.

(2) In the case of Fair Value, transactions costs (including installation and removal costs) are added to acquisition values and deducted from disposal values.

(3) In the case of Fair Value, it is assumed that net realisable value represents the ‘highest and best use’, except when it is exceeded by both replacement cost and value in use. In the latter case, ‘highest and best use’ (and therefore Fair Value) is inferred by assuming profit-maximising behaviour by the owner.

It is suggested that the resulting synthesis represents a method of current valuation which is consistent with the objective of measuring the asset in terms of the economic opportunities that are available to its current owner in the condition and location in which it is currently to be found.     

The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note

Legitimacy theory suggests companies with poorer environmental performance would be expected to provide more extensive off-setting or positive environmental disclosures in their financial reports. However, recent investigations of the performance/disclosure relation [Al-Tuwaijri, S. A., Christensen, T. E., &; Hughes II, K. E. (2004). The relations among environmental disclosure, environmental performance, and economic performance: a simultaneous equations approach. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 29, 447–471; Hughes, S. B., Anderson, A., &; Golden, S. (2001). Corporate environmental disclosures: are they useful in determining environmental performance? Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 20, 217–240; Hughes, S. B., Sander, J. F., &; Reier, J. C. (2000). Do environmental disclosures in US annual reports differ by environmental performance? Advances in Environmental Accounting and Management, 141–161; Patten, D. M. (2002). The relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: a research note. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27, 763–773] report mixed results. In this study, we use size-matched groups based on industry membership (environmentally sensitive versus non-environmentally sensitive) and environmental performance (worse performers versus better performers, based on data from KLD Research and Analytics, Inc.) to test for differences in the use of monetary and non-monetary non-litigation related environmental disclosure. Results indicate that the use of monetary and non-monetary components of the non-litigation related environmental disclosure varies across groups. In general, the findings provide additional support for the argument that companies use disclosure as a legitimizing tool.     

Economic policy uncertainty and stock price crash risk

We examine the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on firm-specific crash risk. Based on a large sample of Chinese listed firms over the period from 2000 to 2017, we provide empirical evidence that firms are more likely to experience stock price crashes when EPU increases. Cross-sectionally analysis further reveals that the impact of EPU on stock price crash risk is stronger for firms whose returns are more sensitive to EPU. More specifically, young stocks, small stocks, high volatility stocks, and growth stocks, which have higher valuation uncertainty per se, are more sensitive to EPU and are more affected by EPU in terms of crash risk. We further show that EPU is significantly and positively associated with aggregated stock price crash risk at the market level.     

Stock price crash risk and internal control weakness: presence vs. disclosure effect

This study examines the stock price crash risk for a sample of firms that disclosed internal control weaknesses (ICW) under Section 404 of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX). We find that in the year prior to the initial disclosures, ICW firms are more crash‐prone than firms with effective internal controls. This positive relation is more pronounced when weakness problems are associated with a firm's financial reporting process. More importantly, we find that stock price crash risk reduces significantly after the disclosures of ICWs, despite the disclosure itself signalling bad news. The above results hold after controlling for various firm‐specific determinants of crash risk and ICWs. Using an ICW disclosure as a natural experiment, our study attempts to isolate the presence effect of undisclosed ICWs from the initial disclosure effect of internal control weakness on stock price crash risk. In so doing, we provide more direct evidence on the causal relation between the quality of financial reporting and stock price crash risk.     

The benefits of specific risk-factor disclosures

Practitioners have long criticized risk-factor disclosures in the 10-K as generic and boilerplate. In response, regulators emphasize the importance of being specific. By using a computing algorithm, this paper establishes a new measure (Specificity) to quantify the level of specificity of firms’ qualitative risk-factor disclosures. We first examine determinants of variations in Specificity, and document that firms with high proprietary costs provide less specific risk-factor disclosures. More importantly, we find that, controlling for numerous determinants, the market reaction to the 10-K filing is positively and significantly associated with Specificity. In addition, our results suggest that analysts are better able to assess fundamental risk when firms’ risk-factor disclosures are more specific. Together, these findings suggest that more specific risk-factor disclosures benefit users of financial statements.     

The moderating role of board gender diversity on the relationship between firm opacity and stock returns

In this study, we examine the impact of board gender diversity on the association between firm opacity and stock price crash. We utilize the negative shock of the 2007–2008 financial crisis to capital markets to examine whether firms with gender-diverse boards witnessed lower stock price crashes due to their lower opacity ex ante. Using a sample of S&P 1500 firms spanning the period 2005–2008, we employ a difference-in-differences research design and find that firms with high opacity ex ante witness more negative returns ex post. We also find that gender-diverse firms ex ante witness less negative returns ex post. Finally, our analysis reveals the moderating role that board gender diversity plays in the association between firm opacity and stock returns around the financial crisis. We subject our results to a range of robustness checks, including instrumental variable regressions, matched-sample analyses, and a set of falsification and placebo tests. Overall, we provide evidence that board gender diversity is associated with increased transparency in financial reporting, which pays off in times of crisis.     

Managerial risk-taking incentives and non-GAAP earnings disclosures

We investigate the association between risk-taking incentives provided by stock-based compensation arrangements and non-GAAP financial disclosures. Controlling for compensation to stock price sensitivity, we find that managers with higher compensation to stock volatility sensitivity (vega) are more likely to be associated with voluntary non-GAAP earnings information disclosures. In addition, higher-vega managers are found to be associated with more frequent and less opportunistic non-GAAP earnings information disclosures. Robust to alternative specifications and estimations, our findings suggest that compensation arrangements can encourage managers to make more, higher-quality voluntary non-GAAP disclosures.     

R around the world: New theory and new tests

Morck, Yeung and Yu show that R² is higher in countries with less developed financial systems and poorer corporate governance. We show how control rights and information affect the division of risk bearing between managers and investors. Lack of transparency increases R² by shifting firm-specific risk to managers. Opaque stocks with high R²s are also more likely to crash, that is, to deliver large negative returns. Using stock returns from 40 stock markets from 1990 to 2001, we find strong positive relations between R² and several measures of opaqueness. These measures also explain the frequency of crashes.     

The influence of disclosure policy on analyst behavior: The case of segment data

More transparent disclosure reduces the effort required to process reported information. The adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 131, Disclosures about Segments of an Enterprise and Related Information, increased the transparency of segment information reported by diversified firms. Using a long sample window (1988–2007) and a difference-in-difference design, this paper examines the association between corporate diversification and analysts' efforts—as reflected in analysts' idiosyncratic information precision and analyst consensus—across the old SFAS No. 14 and the new SFAS No. 131 segment reporting regime. Results indicate that SFAS No. 131 has improved segment reporting such that analysts need to invest relatively less effort generating idiosyncratic information when issuing forecasts for diversified firms. Given that analysts' information gathering efforts are costly, these findings are of interest to policy makers when assessing whether the intended reporting objectives of SFAS No. 131 are being met in a cost effective manner.     

Systemic risk in the Chinese financial system: A panel Granger causality analysis

In this paper, we investigate China’s changing financial interconnectedness via the presence of Granger-causality between firm level factors (Leverage, Market To Book Value and Returns) and systemic risk measures ($\Delta$CoVaR, MES, and SRISK ). The analysis is based on 161 Chinese financial intermediaries (14 Traditional Banks, 16 Finance Services, 131 Real Estate Finance Developers) continuously listed over the period 2007:1–2021:1. We find that, in addition to traditional banks, finance companies and real estate finance developers pose systemic threats to the Chinese financial system, in particular during the Global Financial Crisis and the 2015 Chinese stock crash. Finally, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has put under strain the Chinese financial system, in particular the finance services.     

Do Mandatory Hedge Disclosures Discourage or Encourage Excessive Speculation?

In order to shed some light on the desirability of hedge disclosures, I investigate the consequences of hedge disclosures on a firm's risk management strategy. Several major results emerge from this analysis. First, greater transparency about a firm's derivative activities is not necessarily a panacea for imprudent risk management strategies. I show that such transparency actually induces the firm to take excessive speculative positions in the derivative market. Second, I show that the firm may choose a prudent risk management strategy in the absence of hedge disclosures. However, the selection of a prudent risk management comes at a cost. The firm's production policy is distorted in the absence of hedge disclosures.
These findings suggest that regulators must carefully investigate the trade-offs between production distortions and risk management distortions in evaluating the desirability of mandatory hedge disclosures for all firms.     

Corporate governance,SFAS 157 and cost of equity capital: evidence from US financial institutions

This study examines the association between fair value measurements and the cost of equity capital under different fair value valuation methods, and assesses the impact of corporate governance on this relationship for US financial firms. We find that firms’ cost of equity capital is negatively associated with more verifiable fair value assets and positively related to less verifiable fair value assets. Furthermore, the positive association between less verifiable fair value assets and the cost of equity capital is mitigated under better corporate governance. The differential impact between more and less verifiable assets becomes smaller for firms with stronger governance. Our findings contribute to the ongoing debate on fair value regulation by investigating the economic consequences of adopting Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 157, Fair Value Measurements (SFAS 157) and the importance of audit committee financial expertise on fair value reporting. We also provide evidence on the importance of board independence, internal control strength, auditor industry specialists, and audit committee financial experts in fair value reporting.     

Audit firm's Confucianism and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the association between audit firm's Confucianism and stock price crash risk. We postulate that Confucian moral standards predict a mixed relationship between audit firm's Confucianism and stock price crash risk. Using a large sample of listed firms in China during 2006–2018, we find that audit firm's Confucianism is positively related with client's future stock price crash risk, implying that Confucianism of audit firm aggravates client's bad news hoarding behavior. The effect is more pronounced for client without female auditors and/or with closer personal relationship with auditors. Mechanism analysis shows that audit firm's Confucianism exacerbates crash risk by worsening audit quality and information transparency. Political discipline and external monitoring help to alleviate the negative influence of audit firm's Confucianism on stock price crash risk.     

年报风险信息披露与银行贷款利率

既有文献较少从银行视角关注年报风险信息披露的经济后果。银行更有能力解读年度风险信息,银行利益也更直接受到年报风险信息的影响,银行贷款利率更能体现年报风险信息披露的经济后果。本文基于2008-2017年单笔银行贷款利率数据的研究发现:总体上我国年报风险信息披露降低了银行贷款利率,说明我国年报风险信息披露更符合趋同观假说。中介效应检验发现:我国年报风险信息披露通过提高信息透明度,降低银行风险感知水平进而降低了银行贷款利率,即信息质量和风险是我国年报风险信息披露影响银行贷款利率的不完全中介。进一步分析发现:我国年报风险信息披露与银行贷款利率的负相关关系主要体现在货币政策紧缩组、非国有企业组以及公司治理水平较高组。本文首次研究银行贷款利率与年报风险信息披露的关系,有助于丰富风险信息披露文献和银行贷款文献。     

Competitive harm and geographic area disclosure under SFAS 131

Prior research documents considerable diversity in the amount of detail provided by companies in complying with the foreign country disclosure requirements of SFAS 131. We posit that the potential competitive harm associated with country specific disclosures provides an incentive for management to avoid making these disclosures. Specifically, we hypothesize that firms with higher potential competitive harm costs will provide less detailed geographic area disclosures. Our results show that, as expected, firms exposed to greater competitive harm costs provide less detailed country specific revenue disclosures. This study helps to explain the diversity in practice with respect to the level of detail provided by companies in their geographic area disclosures under SFAS 131. In addition, it adds to the literature examining the impact of potential competitive harm on disclosures made by U.S. firms, by extending the line of research to geographic area disclosures.     

Shadows in the Sun: Crash risk behind Earnings Transparency

Prior studies suggest that earnings and non-earnings information can be complementary to each other (Lundholm, 1988). Given the co-existence of both components, a lack of non-earnings information can end up boosting earnings explanatory power on returns in certain circumstances, producing spuriously high earnings transparency (ET) in Barth et al. (2013). This scenario is plausible when insiders are motivated to exploit their information advantage and discretionarily alter non-mandatory disclosure strategy. Conditional on higher insider trading profit, we uncover a positive relation between the firm-specific earnings transparency and crash risk. In addition, the above relation is more pronounced with respect to selling and profitable insider transactions. Overall, we demonstrate a potential dark side of high earnings explanatory power on stock returns, conditional on higher likelihood of non-earnings information hoarding.     

Are required SEC proxy disclosures about the board’s role in risk oversight substantive?

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires companies it regulates to include disclosures about the board’s role in risk oversight in the annual proxy statement to shareholders. The SEC does not mandate specific content or actions that boards should perform as part of their risk oversight responsibilities, leaving the nature of activities and extent of those disclosures to the discretion of the reporting entity. This study examines whether these disclosures contain substantive information reflective of the effectiveness of the organization’s risk oversight. We find that organizations disclosing more specific information (but not simply more information) about board risk oversight practices are associated with firms independently assessed as having the strongest management and governance processes. These findings suggest that these firms use the discretion provided by the SEC’s disclosure rule to provide substantive and potentially value-relevant information for stakeholders about the entity’s risk management processes and board risk oversight activities.