Audit‐Firm Tenure and the Quality of Financial Reports*

This study examines whether the length of the relationship between a company and an audit firm (audit‐firm tenure) is associated with financial‐reporting quality. Using two proxies for financial‐reporting quality and a sample of Big 6 clients matched on industry and size, we find that relative to medium audit‐firm tenures of four to eight years, short audit‐firm tenures of two to three years are associated with lower‐quality financial reports. In contrast, we find no evidence of reduced financial‐reporting quality for longer audit‐firm tenures of nine or more years. Overall, our results provide empirical evidence pertinent to the recurring debate regarding mandatory audit‐firm rotation — a debate that has, to date, relied on anecdotal evidence and isolated cases.     

The Impact of Financial and Tax Reporting Incentives on Option Grants to Canadian CEOs*

This study explores the effects of financial and tax reporting incentives on options granted to chief executive officers in Canada. Extant studies with a similar objective (Yermack 1995; Matsunaga 1995) explore predominantly nonqualified U.S. option grants that are deductible to the extent that the options are in the money at the time of exercise. In contrast, Canadian firms do not get a tax deduction for their stock option grants at any time. In both countries, no expense is recorded for financial reporting purposes. As a result, the financial reporting and tax reporting trade‐off is more pronounced in the Canadian setting of this study compared with the U.S. setting. We measure option granting behavior as the ratio of the Black‐Scholes value of stock option grants to the sum of cash compensation and the value of stock option grants. Using a sample of 806 firm‐year observations during the period 1993‐95, we find that observed option grants are significantly correlated with proxies for short‐run financial reporting incentives. We also find evidence that option granting behavior is correlated with proxies for tax incentives.     

The Economic Impact of the Lack of Transparency in Financial Reporting

Off-balance-sheet amounts are in the trillions of dollars, not including all transactions with off-balance-sheet implications. Financial managers and consultants intentionally structure transactions that are abusive of off-balance sheet accounting rules, which leads to a lack of transparency in financial reporting. This paper explores several ways in which companies manipulate off-balance sheet transactions to satisfy personal and business objectives as well as the impact of such manipulations. It is time for regulatory bodies to close the loopholes, eliminate overly rules-based standards, clearly state the economic objective of each standard, and require firms to disclose the economic motivations for the accounting practices they adopt.      

Determinants of Managerial Earnings Guidance Prior to Regulation Fair Disclosure and Bias in Analysts' Earnings Forecasts*

Prior to Regulation Fair Disclosure (“Reg FD”), some management privately guided analyst earnings estimates, often through detailed reviews of analysts' earnings models. In this paper I use proprietary survey data from the National Investor Relations Institute to identify firms that reviewed analysts' earnings models prior to Reg FD and those that did not. Under the maintained assumption that firms conducting reviews guided analysts' earnings forecasts, I document firm characteristics associated with the decision to provide private earnings guidance. Then I document the characteristics of “guided” versus “unguided” analyst earnings forecasts. Findings demonstrate an association between several firm characteristics and guidance practices: managers are more likely to review analyst earnings models when the firm's stock is highly followed by analysts and largely held by institutions, when the firm's market‐to‐book ratio is high, and its earnings are important to valuation but hard to predict because its business is complex. A comparison of guided and unguided quarterly forecasts indicates that guided analyst estimates are more accurate, but also more frequently pessimistic. An examination of analysts' annual earnings forecasts over the fiscal year does not distinguish between guidance and no‐guidance firms; both experience a “walk‐down” in annual estimates. To distinguish between guidance and no‐guidance firms, one must examine quarterly earnings news: unguided analysts walk down their annual estimates when the majority of the quarterly earnings news is negative; guided analysts walk down their annual estimates even though the majority of the quarterly earnings news is positive.     

Cancellation of Executive Stock Options: Tax and Accounting Income Considerations*

Canadian firms face a trade‐off between reporting higher accounting income and paying lower taxes that arises from their ability to cancel in‐the‐money executive stock options and making a substitute cash payment to the executive instead of issuing shares. Firms' trade‐off hypotheses are operationalized in a multilateral framework and empirically tested using insider‐trading data. The multilateral approach is designed to control for the incentive effects of alternative compensation schemes and to determine the cancellation payment that keeps the executive indifferent between receiving cash or shares. The results show that firms consider both taxes and financial reporting costs in determining their option cancellation behavior.     

Audit Qualifications of Income‐Decreasing Accounting Choices*

In this study we conduct an experiment to examine how qualifying an income‐decreasing accounting change in years of strong financial performance affects financial report users' assessments of strategic reporting, current financial performance, and future financial performance (performance over the next three years). We find that without the qualification, users viewed the income‐decreasing accounting change as relatively nonstrategic and that user assessments of current and future performance were not different. In the presence of the qualification, users believed that the accounting change was relatively strategic, and they discounted the income effect of the accounting change. We find further that their assessments of future performance were below their assessments of current performance but no different from the assessments of future performance in the absence of the qualification. Although our findings suggest that audit qualifications encourage users to be skeptical of income‐decreasing accounting changes, we find no evidence that they impose negative consequences on management in terms of lower assessments of financial performance.     

ECFA时代闽台区域性金融中心构建模式——基于金融生态演化视角

随着ECFA时代的到来,为适应经济发展的需要而建立两岸区域性金融中心成为大势所趋。本文通过实证论证了福建与发达城市相比在金融综合竞争力、金融生态环境等方面存在差距。因此,需要通过政府的有效引导得以改善,才能推动两岸区域性金融中心的建设,并对闽台区域性金融中心的建设提出一系列政策建议。     

基于金融生态视角的金融中心形成机制研究

本文借鉴生态学的基本观念和方法,从金融生态的视角,构建了金融生态概念模型,分析金融中心的不同形成机制,并以深圳金融中心建设为例,验证和分析了基于金融生态视角的金融中心形成机制,最后得出了对我国金融中心建设的三条重要启示。     

日本金融危机长期化与复杂化的原因透析

素来以金融“立”国、金融“强”国著称的日本,在20世纪90年代却遭遇世界近现代金融史上持续时间较长、损失较为惨烈的“滑铁卢”,虽然看似偶然却又事发必然,所有这一切都是由于长期隐藏在日本政治、经济、历史和文化之间的潜在矛盾集体爆发综合所致。     

依托霍尔果斯国际边境合作中心推进中哈区域金融合作问题探讨

中哈霍尔果斯国际边境合作中心的主要功能是贸易洽谈、商品展示和销售、金融服务、仓储运输、宾馆饭店、商业服务设施和举办各类区域性国际经贸洽谈会。本文阐述了霍尔果斯国际边境合作中心给中哈金融合作带来的机遇,以及对金融服务的要求,在此基础上分析了目前中哈金融合作中存在的主要问题,并提出了政策建议。     

国际金融危机背景下的金融交易税:从理论到实践

国际金融危机席卷全球之后,金融交易税重新受到高度关注,各国陆续提出了若干种实施方案。本文首先回顾了当前国际金融危机下的全球经济走势及各国提出金融交易税的宏观经济背景,其次阐述了金融交易税理论的内涵及效应,并结合国内外关于金融交易税的各类研究探讨交易税如何影响金融市场的有效性和稳定性。论文不仅比较了历史上各国征收金融交易税的经验及效果,而且估计了调整证券交易印花税对中国股市的实际影响。最后,分析了国际上开征金融交易税的可行性,并就中国金融交易税的方案提出政策建议。     

战后日本实现金融深化的路径分析

战后赶超期日本通过"温和"的金融约束实现了金融深化,但金融约束政策在应该放松甚至退出的时机没有放松或退出阻碍了金融体系促进经济增长的作用;金融自由化以来日本通过市场增进--体系重建与改进监管并进的路径实现了金融深化.日本的经验证明金融部门的深化可以促进经济发展,但其效果视不同经济体的发展阶段而不同,不同经济体应视各自经济体的情况选择金融深化的手段.日本金融深化过程中金融制度"创新"与"监管"并举的做法对后危机时代各国金融体系的重建具有重要的借鉴意义.     

金融排斥:货币政策失效的另一种解释

至今为止,关于货币政策有效性的研究一直存在争议并受到学者和政策调控部门的持续关注。各种学派在理论上对货币政策有效与否的争论并没有阻碍学者们对现实货币政策有效性的探讨,大量研究都集中在货币传导机制本身及其影响因素上。本文从金融排斥角度解读货币政策可能失效的原因,并指出忽视金融排斥存在的货币政策可能导致的问题,从而赋予金融包容政策新的职能。     

中亚金融中心区位选择研究

近年来,基于对本地区经济、金融发展的考虑,全国30多个省市积极筹建不同层次的金融中心,特别是＂新丝绸之路经济带＂的建设更是掀起了新一轮中亚金融中心建设的热议。究竟什么样的城市具有国际金融中心的条件,本文通过对国内外有关国际金融中心研究现状的梳理及对著名的国际金融中心发展历史的归纳总结,认为经济实力、金融集聚、地理位置及政府支持是促成国际金融中心形成的最核心因素。在此基础上通过乌鲁木齐与西安的比较分析,认为乌鲁木齐更具有建设中亚金融中心的综合优势。为此,乌鲁木齐应利用＂新丝绸之路经济带＂建设的有利时机,通过建立中亚融资中心、中亚清算中心、中亚金融市场中心和中亚外汇交易中心来实现乌鲁木齐中亚金融中心的目标。     

上市公司财务困境预警模型--一个基于沪市A股上市公司的实证研究

本文以我国沪市上市公司为研究对象,遴选了2004年度首次亏损的23家上市公司作为财务困境公司样本,同时选取了23家与之有大致相同规模的盈余公司作为正常公司样本。对相关公司的相关财务指标进行调整后,进行Logistic回归,从而建立两个财务困境预警模型,并对之进行实证检验。研究结果表明:采用调整财务数据后建立的财务困境预警模型对未来事件的预测率比采用原始数据建立的财务困境预警模型的预测率要好。     

日本近代地方财政制度的形成

地方财政制度是地方制度的重要组成部分。日本近代地方财政制度在经历了明治初期具有过渡特点的民费财政、初步统一的地方税财政和1884年前后的进一步改革后,于1888年市制町村制和1890年府县制郡制颁布后正式形成。其特点表现为:在财源分配上国税优于地方税;在支出上国政委任事务费占主要地位;在运营上实现了议会的参与。我国学者目前对日本近代的地方财政问题还很少研究,探讨这一问题,对于我们深入理解日本近代的地方自治制度,乃至战后的地方自治制度都具有重要意义。     

科技型中小企业金融支持的策略分析

科技型中小企业自身特殊性、商业银行信贷风险防范、企业经营缺陷、资本市场不完善、信用担保体系不健全以及风险投资机制不规范等,是造成当前科技型中小企业融资困境的主要因素.本文提出从设立科技银行、知识产权质押贷款、集合保理融资、产业集群内担保贷款等方面创新间接融资渠道,同时扩大资本市场融资、鼓励风险投资和加大政府扶持来应对科技型中小企业融资困境.     

对金融支持新疆社会主义新农村建设的思考

金融支持对促进社会主义新农村建设起着至关重要的作用,而新疆农村地区普遍存在着金融抑制现象。本文就这一现象产生的原因进行了分析,在此基础上,提出了加大金融支持新疆社会主义新农村建设力度的对策建议。     

从国际金融危机看新加坡的国家治理

新加坡作为亚洲四小龙之一,以国家资本主义模式特立于世,是高度出口依赖、本地资源匮乏的国家,出口贸易和国际金融中心运营是主要经济支柱,国际人才战略是新加坡立于不败的根本。在国际金融危机来临时,新加坡应对措施及时、适当,加之国企公司治理制度的良好基础,使得它在2009年迅速恢复元气。新加坡成功的国家治理经验值得中国借鉴。