Debt Covenant Restriction,Financial Misreporting,and Auditor Monitoring*

Theory suggests that financial report-based debt covenants engender incentives for the manager to relax covenant constraints through accounting choices in order to avoid costly covenant violations. Prior studies directly testing this hypothesis in the context of financial misreporting fail to find consistent evidence. Using a more refined measure of debt covenant restriction, we find that debt covenant restriction is positively associated with the probability of financial statement misstatements. This positive association is driven by performance covenants rather than capital covenants and is more consistent with the manager striving to avoid a “false-positive” violation than to delay the violation. Our results also imply that managers resort to both income-increasing and non–income-increasing misreporting to relieve covenant constraints and rely more on the latter when faced with greater earnings management constraints. Additionally, the auditor charges higher audit fees to firms with more binding covenants even outside the violation state, and audit fees increase with constraints relative to both performance and capital covenants, reflecting greater financial reporting risk and bankruptcy risk, respectively. Within capital covenants, we find some evidence of even higher audit fees for tighter intangible-inclusive versus intangible-exclusive capital covenants. Lastly, our evidence suggests that the positive association between covenant constraints and misreporting is attenuated when the auditor has more experience with debt covenants, has greater bargaining power over the client, or faces greater litigation risk.     

Is Financial Literacy Dangerous? Financial Literacy,Behavioral Factors,and Financial Choices of Households

Using original purpose-built 2018 Japanese survey data, we estimate the financial behaviors and attitudes of households. We find that financial literacy plays an important and consistent role in financial decision-making. However, the actual behaviors are counter-intuitive: people with high levels of financial literacy tend to take too many risks, overborrow, and hold naive financial attitudes. That is, financial literacy tends to cause people to become daring and reckless toward some financial aspects. By contrast, financially literate people are better at retirement planning and are indifferent to gambling. Preferences such as risk and loss aversions and discount factors, also play a role in financial choices.     

The Association between the Legal and Financial Reporting Environments and Forecast Performance of Individual Analysts*

We test the ability of analyst characteristics to explain relative forecast accuracy across legal origins (common law versus civil law). Common‐law countries generally have more effective corporate governance mechanisms, including stronger investor protection laws and inputs provided through higher‐quality financial reporting systems. In this type of environment, we predict that analysts with superior ability and resources in common‐law countries will more consistently outperform their peers because appropriate market‐based incentives exist. In civil‐law countries, where the demand for earnings information is reduced because of weaker corporate governance mechanisms and lower‐quality financial reporting, we predict that analysts with superior ability will less consistently provide superior forecasts. Results are consistent with our expectations and suggest an association between legal and financial reporting environments and analysts' forecast behavior.     

Home Country Investor Protection,Ownership Structure and Cross‐Listed Firms' Compliance with SOX‐Mandated Internal Control Deficiency Disclosures

We examine whether home country investor protection and ownership structure affect cross‐listed firms' compliance with SOX‐mandated internal control deficiency (ICD) disclosures. We develop a proxy for the likelihood of cross‐listed firms' ICD misreporting during the Section 302 reporting regime. For cross‐listed firms domiciled in weak investor protection countries, we have three main findings. First, firms whose managers control their firms and have voting rights in excess of cash flow rights are more likely to misreport ICD than other firms during the Section 302 reporting regime. Second, there is a positive association between the likelihood of ICD misreporting and voluntary deregistration from the SEC prior to the Section 404 effective date. Third, for firms that chose not to deregister, there is a positive association between the likelihood of ICD misreporting and the reporting of previously undisclosed ICDs during the Section 404 reporting regime. We do not find similar evidence for cross‐listed firms domiciled in strong investor protection countries. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that, for cross‐listed firms domiciled in weak investor protection countries, managers who have the ability and incentive to expropriate outside minority shareholders are reluctant to disclose ICDs in order to protect their private control benefits. The results of our study should be of interest to regulators who wish to identify noncompliant firms for closer supervision, investors who wish to identify ex ante red flags for poor financial disclosure quality, and researchers who wish to understand the economic forces governing cross‐listed firms' financial disclosure behavior.     

An Experimental Investigation of Approaches to Audit Decision Making: An Evaluation Using Systems‐Mediated Mental Models*

The objective of this research is to articulate a decision‐making foundation for the systems audit approach. Under this audit approach, the auditor first gains an understanding of the auditee's economic environment, strategy, and business processes and then forms expectations about its performance and financial reporting. Proponents of this audit approach argue that decision making is enhanced because the knowledge of the system allows the auditor to focus on the most important risks. However, there has not been an explicit framework to explain how systems knowledge can enhance decision making. To provide such a framework, we combine mental model theory with general systems theory to produce a hypothesis we refer to as a systems‐mediated mental model hypothesis. We test this hypothesis using experimental economics methods. We find that (1) subjects make systematic errors under the setting without an organizing framework provided by the systems information, and (2) the presence of an organizing framework results in lower reporting errors. Importantly, the organizing framework significantly enhances decision making in the settings where the environment changed. Establishing a decision‐making foundation for systems audits can provide an important building block that, in part, can contribute to the development of a more effective and efficient audit technology ‐ an important objective now when audits are facing a credibility crisis.     

Gambling,Prediction Markets and Public Policy

The recent worldwide increase in gambling and prediction markets, including casinos, sports betting, lotteries, elections, and wagering on financial instruments has stimulated an important debate regarding the public policy implications of these activities. Some critical research questions concern the efficiency of such markets, heterogeneity in risk attitudes among agents engaged in these activities, the factors that influence performance in gambling, and the desirability of using prediction markets. This special issue provides empirical evidence on these issues.     

Director Monitoring of Expense Misreporting in Nonprofit Organizations: The Effects of Expense Disclosure Transparency,Donor Evaluation Focus and Organization Performance

This study examines whether three factors—the transparency of expense disclosures, donor evaluation focus, and organization performance—influence how directors monitor management expense misreporting in nonprofit organizations. An experiment with 189 nonprofit directors finds that the enhanced transparency of expense disclosures increases director monitoring by reducing the tendency to accept management expense misreporting. Further, an organization's nonfinancial performance and the perceived fairness of donor evaluation focus interact to influence director monitoring practices. Specifically, when directors know an organization's nonfinancial performance is poor and understand that this performance will negatively influence the willingness of donors to contribute, directors monitor less if they think that donors are adopting a more balanced approach to organizational evaluation that focuses on both financial and nonfinancial performance; that is, there is a reverse fair process effect as this donor approach is perceived as being fairer than if donors focus solely on financial performance. However, monitoring is equally strong regardless of donor evaluation focus when directors know that an organization's nonfinancial performance is good and a donation is forthcoming.     

Sentimental Preferences and the Organizational Regime of Betting Markets

We analyze the price impact of sentimental bettor preferences within a bookmaker betting market. A theoretical model demonstrates that, under reasonable assumptions about the nature of demand in a market with strong competition, the bookmaker will offer lower prices for bets with comparatively stronger demand. Using a sample of more than 16,000 English soccer matches we find evidence that more favorable odds are extended to bets on more popular clubs and that this effect is amplified on weekends when sentimental bettors face lower opportunity costs to wager. Our findings help to explain why the market for sports gambling operates as a hybrid structure with bookmakers able to attract a considerable share of the betting volume, although identical contracts are traded on exchange markets at lower costs: the organizational design of a quote‐driven market enables the dealer to take advantage of sentimental bettor preferences.     

A Reexamination of Behavior in Experimental Audit Markets: The Effects of Moral Reasoning and Economic Incentives on Auditor Reporting and Fees*

This study uses experimental markets to investigate how moral reasoning influences auditor reporting under different levels of economic incentives. In each multiperiod market, auditor subjects could either (1) misreport low observed outcomes as high and thereby reap economic advantages at the expense of third‐party investors, or (2) truthfully report low observed outcomes as low but thereby forgo the economic advantages of misreporting. We extend the Calegari, Schatzberg, and Sevcik 1998 experimental‐markets setting to incorporate moral reasoning, and test hypotheses based on the economic model of Magee and Tseng 1990 and the neo‐Kohlbergian moral reasoning framework of Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, and Thoma 1999. We document a significant effect of moral reasoning on auditor behavior. Specifically, we find that misreporting and premium fees are more likely with higher than with lower moral reasoning subjects, and the moral reasoning effect diminishes as economic penalties increase in the market. These findings provide valuable insights for specifying the determinants of auditor misreporting, the observable behaviors that signal its existence, and the institutions that can prevent its occurrence in the market. We conclude that the relation between moral reasoning and behavior is more complex than commonly assumed in the accounting literature, and identify directions for future research.     

Gender Differences in Financial Reporting Decision Making: Evidence from Accounting Conservatism

This paper investigates the effect of CFO gender on corporate financial reporting decision making. Focusing on firms that experience changes of CFO from male to female, the paper compares the firms' degree of accounting conservatism between pre‐ and post‐transition periods. We find that female CFOs are more conservative in their financial reporting. In addition, we find that the relation between CFO gender and conservatism varies with the level of various firm risks, including litigation risk, default risk, systematic risk, and CFO‐specific risk such as job security risk. We further find that the risk aversion of female CFOs is associated with less equity‐based compensation, lower firm risk, a higher tangibility level, and a lower dividend payout level. Overall, the study provides strong support for the notion that female CFOs are more risk averse than male CFOs, which leads female CFOs to adopt more conservative financial reporting policies.     

Financial Reporting Opacity and Expected Crash Risk: Evidence from Implied Volatility Smirks

The recent financial crisis has stimulated a renewed interest in understanding the determinants of stock price crash risk (i.e., left tail risk). Recent research shows that opaque financial reports enable managers to hide and accumulate bad news for extended periods. When the accumulated bad news reaches a certain tipping point, it will be suddenly released to the market at once, resulting in an abrupt decline in stock price (i.e., a crash). This study extends this line of research by examining the impact of financial reporting opacity on perceived or expected crash risk. Prominent economists, such as Olivier Blanchard, argue that removing the perception of tail risks (in addition to realized tail risks) is crucial in restoring investor confidence and stabilizing the stock market. Using the steepness of option implied volatility skew as a proxy for perceived crash risk, we find that accrual management, the presence of financial statement restatements, and auditor‐attested internal control weakness are all positively and significantly associated with the level of perceived crash risk. Our results suggest that improving financial reporting transparency is an important mechanism for firms and policymakers to reduce the perception of tail risks and stabilize the stock market.     

Financial Reporting and Trade Credit: Evidence from Mandatory IFRS Adoption*

We investigate the effect of mandatory IFRS adoption on trade credit. We document that firms in countries that adopt IFRS receive more trade credit from their suppliers, consistent with improved financial reporting quality and comparability playing a role in facilitating informal financing. This increase is larger for countries with a low level of societal trust, a poor pre‐IFRS‐adoption information environment, and stronger legal enforcement. These cross‐sectional results suggest that the conditions under which higher‐quality information is made publicly available affect suppliers' decisions to provide trade credit. This increase is also larger for firms with greater exposure to foreign markets, a finding that highlights the importance of more comparable international financial reporting standards in facilitating cross‐country trade credit. We also find that IFRS adoption has a stronger positive effect on trade credit for firms with greater liquidity needs. Finally, we find that firms in countries that adopt IFRS also extend more trade credit to their customers. Overall, our results support the notion that financial reporting can have a causal effect on trade credit.     

Enterprise Risk Management and the Financial Reporting Process: The Experiences of Audit Committee Members,CFOs, and External Auditors

The recent financial crisis has brought to the forefront the need for companies to effectively manage their risks. In this regard, one approach that has gained prominence is enterprise risk management (ERM). Importantly, little is known about the link between ERM and the financial reporting process. This link is critical, because it is imperative that financial reporting adequately depicts the financial status (e.g., valuations, estimates) and associated risks of a company as revealed by ERM. Additionally, from an auditing perspective, ERM affects the risks of misstatement, which should impact audit planning. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to examine the experiences of audit partners, CFOs, and audit committee (AC) members (“the governance triad”) on the link between ERM and the financial reporting process. To determine whether members of the governance triad focus on monitoring, strategy, or both, we also examine their definition of and experiences with ERM with respect to agency and/or resource dependence theory. To address these issues, we conduct semistructured interviews of experienced individuals that form the governance triads from 11 public companies. There are three major findings from our study. First, importantly, all three types of participants see a strong link between ERM and the financial reporting process. Second, despite recognition of the broad nature of ERM, the predominant experiences of the actual roles played by triad members center on agency theory, while resource dependence may be relatively underemphasized by all triad members. Finally, CFOs and AC members indicate that auditors may be especially underutilizing ERM in the audit process, suggesting an “expectations gap.”     

Vertical Pay Dispersion,Peer Observability,and Misreporting in a Participative Budgeting Setting

In this study, we examine the joint effect of vertical pay dispersion and peer observability on subordinates' misreporting choices. We adopt a participative budgeting setting in which two subordinates report to one superior, and we manipulate vertical pay dispersion (low/high) and peer observability (absent/present). Subordinates have private information about actual project costs and can over-report project costs to the superior without detection and thus create budgetary slack. When a peer's reporting choices are observable, we predict and find that peer reporting choices have an asymmetric influence on the focal subordinates' reporting choices, and this asymmetric influence depends on the level of vertical pay dispersion. Specifically, we find that when vertical pay dispersion is low, subordinates who observe peer reports containing low slack misreport less, whereas observing peer reports that contain high slack has no significant effect. However, when vertical pay dispersion is high, subordinates who observe peer reports containing high slack misreport more, whereas observing peer reports that contain low slack has no significant effect. Driven by these asymmetric effects, subordinates misreport less in the presence of peer observability than in its absence when vertical pay dispersion is low and misreport more in the presence of peer observability than in its absence when vertical pay dispersion is high. Overall, our findings suggest that when a firm has a more egalitarian pay structure (i.e., low vertical pay dispersion), an open information policy is conducive to a more honest reporting environment, whereas under a more hierarchical pay structure (i.e., high vertical pay dispersion), open information policies can compromise the honesty of subordinates' reports.     

Corruption and firm growth: Evidence from China

Corruption is one of the most pervasive obstacles to economic and social development. However, in the existing literature it appears that corruption seems to be less harmful in some countries than in others. The most striking examples are well known as the “East Asian paradox”: countries displaying exceptional growth records despite having thriving corruption cultures. The aim of this paper is to explain the high corruption but fast economic growth puzzle in China by providing firm-level evidence of the relation between corruption and growth and investigating how financial development influences the former relationship. Our empirical results show that corruption is likely to contribute to firms' growth. We further highlight the substitution relationship between corruption and financial development on firm growth. This means that corruption appears not to be a vital constraint on firm growth if financial markets are underdeveloped. However, pervasive corruption deters firm growth where there are more developed financial markets. This implies that fast firm growth will not be observed until a later stage of China's development when financial markets are well-functioning and corruption is under control. Furthermore, the substitution relationship exists in the private and state-owned firms. Geographically, similar results can be seen in the Southeast and Central regions.     

The effects of casino gambling on state tax revenue

A theoretical model of state tax structure implies that revenue enhancement due to the introduction of casino gambling is less likely in states where incomes taxes do not exist and where casino tax rates are lower than the corresponding tax rates on sales taxable and excise taxable goods. Further, it is clear that casino gambling is likely to adversely impact lottery tax revenues earmarked for education. Due to the cross-price effects of gambling, tax revenues will likely decline in states that introduce nontaxable casino gambling on Indian reservations. In the longer term, as casino gambling proliferates increasing competition among states, there will be negative revenue consequences due to fewer tourism and employment dollars.     

基于改进F-N曲线的滑坡可接受风险水平研究

滑坡灾害的可接受风险水平是滑坡领域的重要研究内容之一,它常常用F-N曲线直观地表示风险频率与后果之间的关系,然而这种传统方法的参数由人为确定,主观性强,缺乏理论依据,且同一个参数不能适用多个地区和风险.以滑坡灾害的相关规范为依据,用风险矩阵的方法做衔接,绘制出3种决策态度下的滑坡灾害可接受风险的F-N曲线.相比传统的方法,改进后的F-N曲线避免了以上缺陷,使得滑坡灾害可接受风险水平的确定更加精准,同时该方法也可运用到其他领域的相关规范,来研究其可接受风险水平.     

政府治理维度下互联网金融发展面临的风险与治理对策研究

互联网金融在快速发展的过程中面临着多种不同形式的金融风险,对政府治理提出了挑战。基于互联网金融风险的成因,为解决互联网金融发展带来的治理问题,可以从政府与市场、政府自身及政府与社会3个层面入手,提出相应的治理策略。信息技术水平与安全因素导致了治理的信息和时机差,需要政府加强信息获取和信息分析能力;风险管理能力及经验因素导致了治理的层级差,需要政府科学划分央地权责;风险意识及信用水平因素导致了治理的规模差,需要政府建立风险评级体系和征信体系。这是金融学和管理学相融合的新的研究范式,在政府治理维度下对互联网金融发展面临的风险与治理策略的深入探究将会有效推进互联网金融治理。     

The Relation Between Earnings Management and Non‐GAAP Reporting

Managers have a variety of tools at their disposal to influence stakeholder perceptions. Earnings management and the strategic reporting of non‐GAAP earnings are just two of the available menu choices. We explore how real earnings management and accruals management influence the probability that a company will disclose a non‐GAAP adjusted earnings metric in its earnings press release and the likelihood that it will do so aggressively. We first investigate situations where managers already meet analysts’ expectations either based on strong operating performance or after employing real and accruals management. We find that when solid operating performance alone allows firms to meet expectations, managers do not employ earnings management or non‐GAAP reporting. However, when managers meet expectations using real and accruals management, they are significantly less likely to report a non‐GAAP earnings metric. Next, we explore scenarios where companies fall short of expectations. We find that when they just miss expectations after managing GAAP earnings, they are significantly more likely to employ non‐GAAP reporting, suggesting that the timing and relatively costless nature of non‐GAAP reporting allows managers to appear to meet expectations on a non‐GAAP basis when managed GAAP earnings fall short. Moreover, we find that companies are more likely to report non‐GAAP earnings (and to do so aggressively) when (i) they are unable to use real or accruals earnings management, (ii) are constrained by prior‐period accruals management, and (iii) their operating performance is poor. Taken together, our results are consistent with a substitute relation between non‐GAAP reporting and both real and accruals management.     

Target Financial Reporting Quality and M&A Deals that Go Bust*

This study investigates the role of financial reporting quality in merger and acquisition (M&A) deals that are ultimately terminated (i.e., go bust). If a target is a U.S. publicly traded company, an acquirer’s initial assessment of the potential benefits associated with the acquisition of the company is based on publicly available information. Generally, the acquirer obtains limited private information from the target prior to announcing the deal, but engages in transactional due diligence after signing the acquisition agreement to affirm that the financial reporting warranties made by the target are accurate. We construct a low‐quality financial reporting score based on measures prior research identifies as being associated with less reliable, less relevant, and less precise financial reporting. We find that acquirers offer higher premiums for targets with low‐quality financial reporting. However, we also find that low‐quality financial reporting increases the likelihood of deal renegotiation, and contributes to the probability of deals going bust. We document that failed targets are more likely to restate their financial statements after the announcement of the deal, supporting our conjecture that low‐quality financial reporting contributes to deals being terminated. Our research develops a new measure of low‐quality financial reporting, documents that the measure is related to M&A deal outcomes and financial restatements, and provides insights into the consequences of M&A transactional due diligence.