Unexpected Accruals and Conditional Accounting Conservatism

Abstract:  This paper examines the impact of management discretion over accruals on conditional accounting conservatism, defined as the tendency of accountants to recognize bad news on a timelier basis than good news. Prior research suggests that conditional accounting conservatism reflected in earnings is mainly due to the accrual component of earnings, not the cash flow component of earnings. After decomposing total accruals into expected and unexpected accruals, I find that (1) conditional accounting conservatism reflected in accruals is mainly due to unexpected accruals; (2) the negative association between unconditional and conditional accounting conservatism is mainly attributable to unexpected accruals; and (3) firms with higher leverage exhibit conditionally more conservative accounting primarily through unexpected accruals. These results are robust to accrual models that take into account the systematic association between accruals and cash flows and their non-linearity and to the asymmetric persistence of earnings changes specification of conditional accounting conservatism. Taken together, these results suggest that managers exercise their discretion over accruals to expedite the recognition of bad news rather than good news.     

Chief Financial Officers’ Short‐ and Long‐term Incentive‐based Compensation and Earnings Management

This study examines the association between chief financial officers’ (CFOs) short‐ and long‐term compensation and discretionary current and non‐current accruals. The CFO's cash bonus is used as a measure of short‐term incentives and shares plus options is used as a measure of long‐term incentives. The results show a significant and positive association between CFOs’ short‐term compensation and the absolute value of discretionary current accruals. The results also show a significant and positive association between CFOs’ long‐term compensation and the absolute value of discretionary non‐current accruals. STUDY provides evidence that the earnings management behaviour of CFOs is associated with type of CFO compensation.     

The pricing of conservative accounting and the measurement of conservatism at the firm-year level

This paper analyzes the relation between equity prices and conditional conservatism and introduces a new measure of conservatism at the firm-year level. We show that the asymmetric properties of conservative accounting, the existence of non-accounting sources of information, and the properties of GAAP related to special items combine to generate a nonlinear relation between unexpected equity returns and earnings news (the shock to expected current and future earnings). Based on this model, we construct a conservatism ratio (CR) defined as the ratio of the current earnings shock to earnings news. CR measures the proportion of the total shock to expected current and future earnings recognized in current year earnings. Ranking firms according to CR, we show empirically that higher CR firms have more leverage, increased volatility of returns, more incidence of losses, more negative accruals, and increased volatility of earnings and accruals, consistent with the literature on conservative accounting.     

CFOs and CEOs: Who have the most influence on earnings management?

This study examines the association between chief financial officer (CFO) equity incentives and earnings management. Chief executive officer (CEO) equity incentives have been shown to be associated with accruals management and the likelihood of beating analyst forecasts (Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006; Cheng and Warfield, 2005). Because CFOs’ primary responsibility is financial reporting, CFO equity incentives should play a stronger role than those of the CEO in earnings management. We find that the magnitude of accruals and the likelihood of beating analyst forecasts are more sensitive to CFO equity incentives than to those of the CEO. Our evidence supports the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) new disclosure requirement on CFO compensation.     

Accruals and the Conditional Equity Premium

Accruals correlate closely with the determinants of the conditional equity premium at both the firm and the aggregate levels. The common component of firm‐level accruals, which cannot be diversified away by aggregation, explains the positive relation between aggregate accruals and future stock market returns. The residual component, which accounts for most variation in firm‐level accruals, is responsible for the negative cross‐sectional relation between firm‐level accruals and future stock returns. Consistent with the risk‐based explanation, aggregate accruals, as a proxy for the conditional equity premium, forecast changes in aggregate economic activity. Moreover, we document a similar comovement of earnings with the conditional equity premium at both the firm and the aggregate levels, which helps explain the negative relation between changes in aggregate earnings and contemporaneous market returns.     

Does news play an important role in the correction process of the accrual anomaly?

We examine whether the financial press plays an important role in the correction of the accruals anomaly. Using 83,016 Wall Street Journal news articles published during 1993–2006, we find that a significant fraction of abnormal returns associated with the accruals trading strategy is concentrated on news days. The clustering of returns on news announcements is consistent with the financial press revealing information valuable for the correction of accruals mispricing. Further, we find that earnings‐related news is more influential in the correction process than non‐earnings‐related news. Collectively, the results suggest that the financial press provides useful information to capital market participants.     

Further evidence of the relationship between accruals and future cash flows

Focusing only on operating accruals in accrual‐based studies results in a loss of information and noisy measures of both accrual and cash flow components of earnings. Thus, we examine the relative importance of working capital accruals, non‐current operating accruals, and financing accruals with regard to future cash flows from operations (CFO). Using Australian data, we provide evidence that both working capital and non‐current operating accruals are important for explaining future CFO but that the contribution of financing accruals is not significant. Moreover, the asset component of accruals plays a more important role in explaining future CFO than the liability component.     

Explaining the accrual anomaly by market expectations of future returns and earnings

This study examines the accrual anomaly under the framework of the Campbell [Campbell, J.Y. (1991). A variance decomposition for stock returns. Economic Journal 101 (405), 157-179.] model. The Campbell (1991) model shows that realized asset returns are a joint function of 1) expected returns, 2) revisions in market expected future returns (i.e., return news), and 3) revisions in market expected future cash flows (i.e., cash flow news). The current study adopts the Easton [Easton, P. (2004). PE ratios, PEG ratios, and estimating the implied expected rate of return on equity capital. The Accounting Review 79 (1), 73-96.] model to estimate proxies for expected returns, return news, and cash flow news. The results show that firms with low accruals have lower expected returns than firms with high accruals, which is contradictory to prior research that argues that firms with low accruals are more risky. However, investors underestimate (overestimate) future earnings growth, a proxy for cash flow growth, for low (high) accrual firms. Further analysis demonstrates that earnings news (proxy for cash flow news) plays a major role in explaining abnormal returns associated with the accrual anomaly.     

Conditional conservatism and disaggregated bad news indicators in accrual models

Conditional conservatism is an integral but often unmodeled part of the normal accrual process. The standard economic determinants of accruals contain information about unrealized losses. We argue that accountants recognize these unrealized losses as disaggregated write-downs for small asset pools. Modeling disaggregated impairments yields new economic insights about accruals and improved accrual models. We predict that accrual conservatism manifests as a sum of asymmetries for a vector of news indicators, rather than as an asymmetry for a scalar aggregate news proxy. We argue that more detailed segment-level and quarterly indicators have an incremental effect on annual firm-level accruals. We also predict a dynamic effect of successive loss indicators because accountants look for consistent patterns in these variables. Empirical results for U.S. firms support our predictions. The asymmetries in accruals are consistent with conservatism in validation tests. We also document improved statistical power and type I error in earnings management tests.     

Articulation-based accruals

We build an articulating financial statements model in which the beginning and ending balance sheet amounts are explicitly linked to accruals. We distinguish accruals based on the source financial statement of the accruals, either the cash flow statement, balance sheet, or statement of owners’ equity. We then examine how the accrual-generating source affects the relations between accruals and future earnings and stock returns. While prior studies document a negative association between accruals and future earnings and returns, we find accruals relating to the current operating section of the balance sheet are positively associated with future earnings. Further, accruals originating from net financial asset via the statement of owners’ equity are positively associated with future returns. We also show that equity investment and discontinued asset accruals differ from operating asset accruals in their association with future earnings.     

CFO tenure,CFO board membership and accounting conservatism

We examine the influence of chief financial officer (CFO) tenure and CFO board membership on accounting conservatism among Australian listed companies. The study uses market-based (i.e., timeliness of earnings to news) and accounting-based (i.e., accrual-based loss recognition) measures of conservative accounting. The results show that while longer CFO tenure and CFO board membership increases accounting conservativism, this is not the case when CFOs become entrenched through long board-membership tenure. This entrenchment appears to lead to the use of aggressive accounting practices. Overall, the results indicate that CFO tenure and CFO board membership improve financial-reporting quality by increasing accounting conservatism in organizations, providing evidence of the importance of recognizing these two governance characteristics in policymaking and in regulation.     

The Effect of Earnings Management on the Asymmetric Timeliness of Earnings

Abstract:   Is earnings management affecting (driving) the measures of earnings conservatism? Ball et al. (2000) point out that the asymmetry in the recognition of good and bad news in earnings (faster recognition of bad news: earnings conservatism) is more pronounced in common‐law than in code‐law based accounting regimes. However, comparative studies on earnings conservatism in Europe have failed to identify significant differences between common‐law and code‐law based countries. We argue that in code‐law based countries managers have incentives to reduce earnings consistently. This enhances the association between earnings and returns in bad news periods. We find that after controlling for discretionary accruals, the differential earnings response to bad news in Germany and France decreases significantly.     

Conditional conservatism and cost of capital

We empirically test the association between conditional conservatism and cost of equity capital. Conditional conservatism imposes stronger verification requirements for the recognition of economic gains than economic losses, resulting in earnings that reflect losses faster than gains. This asymmetric reporting of gains and losses is predicted to lower firm cost of equity capital by increasing bad news reporting precision, thereby reducing information uncertainty (Guay and Verrecchia 2007) and the volatility of future stock prices (Suijs 2008). Using standard asset-pricing tests, we find a significant negative relation between conditional conservatism and excess average stock returns over the period 1975–2003. This evidence is corroborated by further tests on the association between conditional conservatism and measures of implied cost of capital derived from analysts’ forecasts.     

Conditional Persistence of Earnings Components and Accounting Anomalies

We suggest that the failure of investors to distinguish between an earnings component's autocorrelation coefficient (unconditional persistence) and the marginal contribution of that component's persistence to the persistence of earnings (conditional persistence) provides a partial explanation of post‐earnings‐announcement drift, post‐revenue‐announcement drift, and the accrual anomaly. When the conditional persistence of revenue surprises is high (low) relative to its unconditional persistence, both the post‐earnings‐announcement drift and the post‐revenue‐announcement drift are high (low), because investors’ under‐reaction to revenues and earnings is stronger when the persistence of revenue surprises is more strongly associated with the persistence of earnings surprises. Also, the mispricing of accruals decreases substantially when the conditional persistence of accruals is high relative to its unconditional persistence, because investors’ over‐reaction to accruals is mitigated when the persistence of accruals is indeed more strongly associated with the persistence of earnings. Our findings also suggest that financial analysts’ failure to distinguish between unconditional and conditional persistence of revenues and accruals results in more biased revenue and earnings predictions.     

Stock‐bond return co‐movement and accounting information

I examine how an important attribute of financial reporting quality, i.e., accounting conservatism, affects the sensitivity of corporate bond returns to changes in the value of equity (i.e., the hedge ratio). The correlation between stock and bond returns (co‐movement) is a fundamental input for asset allocation decisions as it determines the diversification benefits of bonds relative to equities within an investment portfolio. According to structural models of credit risk, co‐movement should be generally positive, but lower when the risk of wealth transfers from bondholders to shareholders is severe. I find that firms that report conservative earnings and use covenants in their bond contracts exhibit on average stronger co‐movement. This result is consistent with conservatism providing bondholders with a credible and contractible signal that improves monitoring, thus preventing wealth transfers.     

Earnings components and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings: the case of FRS 3 in the UK

We exploit a unique setting to examine how an accounting regulation change affects the asymmetric timeliness of earnings. Financial Reporting Standard No. 3: Reporting Financial Performance (FRS 3) changed the way listed UK companies recognised bad news through ordinary or extraordinary items. FRS 3 tightened the definition of extraordinary items but gave wider discretion in classifying exceptional items. The results were that, after FRS 3, the asymmetric timeliness of earnings before extraordinary items increased and the association of earnings conservatism with discretionary accruals was weaker.     

Earnings Management by Non‐profit Organisations: Evidence from UK Charities

Informed by stakeholder theory and resource dependence theory, this paper investigates whether UK charities are engaged in earnings management practices. Based on a sample of 1414 charities over a five‐year period (2008–2012) the study firstly finds that UK charities use discretionary accruals to drive their financial results towards a zero surplus/deficit; this result also reveals that the distribution of reported earnings around zero is prevalent amongst UK charities. In addition, in contrast to prior findings, the empirical results point to a significant association between leverage and earnings management behaviour by charities. Lastly, this study finds that the practice of earnings management is influenced by non‐profit organisational size.     

Executive Turnover,Gender, And Earnings Management: An Exploratory Analysis

This paper examines the relationship between the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) turnover and earnings management. Based on cross‐sectional panel regressions on a three‐year sample of the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 1500 firms, the following findings are reported: (1) CFO turnover is accompanied by income‐decreasing earnings management; (2) discretionary accruals tend to become more negative when a male CFO is replaced by a female; (3) earnings management increases income if the outgoing CFO is a female and the incoming is a male and in the case of male–male CFO changes. Overall, these results indicate that the firms who hire a female CFO after a male tend to shift toward more conservative financial reporting practices.     

Accounting Conservatism and the Cost of Capital: An International Analysis

This paper examines the role of conditional accounting conservatism in mitigating the cost of equity and debt capital in an international setting. The findings are that firms domiciled in countries with more conservative financial reporting systems have lower cost of equity and debt capital. The paper further explores the cross‐sectional variation of the above relationships, finding that the negative association between conditional conservatism and the cost of equity and debt capital is more pronounced in countries with stronger legal enforcement, suggesting a complementary role between conservatism and legal institutions in capital markets. In addition, the paper finds that conservatism only reduces the cost of debt in countries where accounting‐based covenants are widely used, consistent with the argument that conditional conservatism improves the efficiency of debt contracts via accelerating covenant violations.     

Do Accruals Drive Firm‐Level Stock Returns? A Variance Decomposition Analysis

This paper extends the variance decomposition framework of Campbell [1991], Campbell and Ammer [1993], and Vuolteenaho [2002] to address the relative value relevance of accrual news, cash flow news, and expected-return news in driving firm-level equity returns. The extension is based on the Feltham-Ohlson [1995, 1996] clean surplus relations. Using three models, this study shows that all three factors, accruals, cash flows, and expected future discount rates are value relevant. Moreover, accrual news is found to significantly dominate expected-return news in driving firm-level stock returns. Operating income news is also found to significantly dominate both expected-return news and free cash flow news in driving firm-level stock returns. Furthermore, after splitting net income into cash flow and accrual earnings components in the Vuolteenaho model, accrual earnings news and cash flow earnings news are found to equally drive firm-level stock returns and to dominate expected-return news. Further disaggregation of the data yields some evidence that accrual earnings news is a more important factor than cash flow earnings news in driving current stock returns. Overall, the three models indicate that changes in expected future accruals are a primary driver, if not the primary driver, of current stock returns.