Why Do Individual Investors Disregard Accounting Information? The Roles of Information Awareness and Acquisition Costs

We investigate the frictions that impede individual investors’ use of accounting information and, in particular, their costs of monitoring and acquiring accounting disclosures. We do so using an archival setting in which individuals are presented with automated media articles that report both current earnings news and past stock returns. Although these investors have earnings information readily available, we find no evidence that their trades incorporate it. Instead we find that their trading responds to the trailing stock returns presented in the articles. Our study raises questions about the efficacy of regulations that aim to aid less sophisticated investors by increasing their awareness of and access to accounting information.     

信息不对称状况下的信贷配给

信息不完全普遍存在于商业信贷活动中,这使得信贷配给成为一个普遍的现象。本文借鉴了前人理论,通过建立不完全信息条件下的信贷配给模型,分析了信贷配给的形成机理。由此得到的启示是,缓解信贷配给问题关键在于营造一个理想的社会化信用环境,改善中小企业整体资信状况。     

Cross‐Firm Real Earnings Management

Our analysis is rooted in the notion that stockholders can learn about the fundamental value of any firm from observing the earnings reports of its rivals. We argue that such intraindustry information transfers, which have been broadly documented in the empirical literature, may motivate managers to alter stockholders’ beliefs about the value of their firm not only by manipulating their own earnings report but also by influencing the earnings reports of rival firms. Managers obviously do not have access to the accounting system of peer firms, but they can nevertheless influence the earnings reports of rival firms by distorting real transactions that relate to the product market competition. We demonstrate such managerial behavior, which we refer to as cross‐firm real earnings management, and explore its potential consequences and interrelation with the practice of accounting‐based earnings management within an industry setting with imperfect (nonproprietary) accounting information.     

Intermediation and the equilibrium allocation of investment capital : Implications for economic development

We investigate several common assertions about intermediation and how it affects the allocation of investment capital. We use a model with adverse selection and costly state verification in which both debt contracts and credit rationing are observed. Intermediaries arise due to a comparative advantage in information acquisition. Relative to the situation absent intermediation, intermediaries reduce credit rationing and (inefficient) interest rate differentials. The model also shows how large interest rate differentials can be observed when financial markets are not integrated and how the volume of intermediation is affected by changes in the environment.     

Revenue Recognition in a Multiperiod Agency Setting

This paper examines how various revenue recognition rules affect the incentive properties of accounting information in a stewardship setting. Our analysis demonstrates that if revenues are recognized according to the realization principle, a single performance measure based on aggregated accounting information can be used to provide desirable production and effort incentives to the manager. In contrast, mark-to-market accounting does not provide efficient aggregation of raw information to solve the stewardship problem. Mark-to-market accounting, though sensible from a valuation perspective, fails to provide desirable incentives because it relies on the anticipated, rather than the actual, performance of the manager. We also consider a setting in which the manager can control the timing of the firm's sales. It then becomes desirable to modify the realization principle and apply the lower-of-cost-or-market valuation rule. The desirable accounting thus exhibits a conservative bias.     

Rationing in IPOs

We provide a model of bookbuilding in IPOs, in which the issuer can choose to ration shares. Before informed investors submit their bids, they know that, in the aggregate, winning bidders will receive only a fraction of their demand. We demonstrate that this mitigates the winners curse, that is, the incentive of bidders to shade their bids. It leads to more aggressive bidding, to the extent that rationing can be revenue-enhancing. In a parametric example, we characterize bid and revenue functions, and the optimal degree of rationing. We show that, when investors information is diffuse, maximal rationing is optimal. Conversely, when their information is concentrated, the seller should not ration shares. We provide testable predictions on bid dispersion and the degree of rationing. Our model reconciles the documented anomaly that higher bidders in IPOs do not necessarily receive higher allocations.     

盈余管理与会计域秩序

盈余管理是目前会计学研究的核心问题之一。本文首先对已有盈余管理研究进行评述,在此基础上,认为已有研究仅仅局限于已有会计规则的框架下来研究会计规则执行过程中的盈余管理,而会计规则的执行在很大程度上决定于会计规则的制定。本文认为,会计规则的制定与执行是两个相互影响的环节,会计域秩序是会计信息质量的基本评价标准;盈余管理研究的目的之一是为会计规则的制定提供依据,它除了关注会计规则的执行行为以外,还应将会计规则的制定作为一个重要的变量,即研究在采用不同原则、方式和程序所制定而成的会计规则下的不同盈余管理行为。     

会计规则的制定目标:信息中立还是经济后果

会计规则的制定目标是形成高质量会计规则的根本性决定因素。“信息中立”是会计价值的根本所在 ,而“经济后果”则是会计所固有的特征。会计规则的制定目标应该综合“信息中立”和“经济后果”两方面。在会计确认与计量上 ,应保持“信息中立” ,在会计报告上 ,应考虑利益相关者的不同信息需求 ,使所披露的会计信息能够满足他们实现自己经济利益的需要 ,但会计信息本身仍然是中立的。     

The impact of accounting information quality on the mispricing of accruals: The case of FRS3 in the UK

We exploit a unique setting of accounting regulation change to examine how accounting information quality affects the well-documented accrual anomaly. We show a significant reduction in the negative return predictability of accruals among UK companies with poorer accounting information quality following the introduction of Financial Reporting Standard No. 3: Reporting Financial Performance (FRS3). While the functional fixation hypothesis attributes the mispricing of accruals to the judgemental error of end-users of information, our findings suggest that the supply side of information also plays a crucial role. Our results provide evidence that regulatory interventions seeking to improve accounting information quality can reduce the mispricing of securities in the capital market.     

Accrual versus cash-basis accounting methods: An agency-theoretic comparison

In an agency setting with moral hazard, this paper analytically demonstrates that accrual accounting is superior to cash-basis accounting (subject to costs). The main reason is that accrual accounting information more fully reflects the overall effects of managerial actions or efforts on future cash flows than cash flow realizations in any given period. As a result, accrual accounting information is more efficient than cash-basis accounting information for both motivating managers to expend efforts and sharing risks under moral hazard.     

A fundamentalist perspective on accounting and implications for accounting research

This paper presents a framework for addressing normative accounting issues for reporting to shareholders. The framework is an alternative to the emerging Conceptual Framework of the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The framework can be broadly characterized as a utilitarian approach to accounting standard setting. It has two main features. First, accounting is linked to valuation models under which shareholders use accounting information to values their stakes. Second, the desirable characteristics of accounting information are inferred from the demand of investors and analysts who use the information in practice. This stands in contrast to the “qualitative characteristics” in the Boards’ Framework which are embraced largely on the basis of their aesthetic appeal. These features lead to a set of broad accounting principles that resolve “recognition” and “measurement” issues at the core of the Boards’ Conceptual Framework and also the central issue of a balance sheet approach versus an income statement approach. The framework in the paper also frames the research questions for researchers interested in accounting policy.     

Dynamic Effects of Information Disclosure on Investment Efficiency

This paper studies how information disclosure affects investment efficiency and investor welfare in a dynamic setting in which a firm makes sequential investments to adjust its capital stock over time. We show that the effects of accounting disclosures on investment efficiency and investor welfare crucially depend on whether such disclosures convey information about the firm's future capital stock (i.e., balance sheet) or about its future operating cash flows (i.e., earnings). Specifically, investment efficiency and investor welfare unambiguously increase in the precision of disclosures that convey information about the future capital stock, since such disclosures mitigate the current owners' incentives to underinvest. In contrast, when accounting reports provide information about future cash flows, the firm can have incentives to either under‐ or overinvest depending on the precision of accounting reports and the expected growth in demand. For such disclosures, investment efficiency and investor welfare are maximized by an intermediate level of precision. The two types of accounting disclosures act as substitutes in that the precision of capital stock disclosures that maximizes investment efficiency (and investor welfare) decreases as cash flow disclosures become more informative and vice versa.     

SCENES FROM A BUDGET: HELPING THE POLICE WITH THEIR ACCOUNTING ENQUIRIES

Accounting information, when used in organizations for decision-making purposes, joins with other types of information to help define and interpret situations. In an effort to portray the role played by accounting information and that of the Treasurer in the construction of the budget of an English Police Authority, this paper explores through a dramaturgical metaphor the events which led to the setting of the budget.     

Earnings management,incentive contracts and private information acquisition

This paper analyzes the optimal design of compensation contracts in the presence of earnings management incentives, and its interplay with investors’ information acquisition decisions. We consider a setting in which compensation contract is based on both accounting earnings and stock price when an agent engages in predictable, pernicious earnings management and stock price is endogenously determined in a Noisy Rational Expectations Equilibrium (NREE) that reflects both the public information from reported earnings and a costly, noisy signal privately acquired by investors. We show that an increase in the precision of the firm’s financial reporting system could reduce the informativeness of stock price and exacerbate the agency problem by inducing lower productive effort and higher earnings management, implying that the firm may not choose a more precise financial reporting system.     

Promotion Tournaments and Capital Rationing

We analyze capital allocation in a conglomerate where divisionalmanagers with uncertain abilities compete for promotion to CEO.A manager can sometimes gain by unobservably adding varianceto divisional performance. Capital rationing can limit thisdistortion, increase productive efficiency, and allow the ownerto make more accurate promotion decisions. Firms for which CEOtalent is more important for firm performance are more likelyto ration capital. A rationed manager is more likely to be promotedeven though all managers are identical ex ante. When the tournamentpayoff is relatively small, offering an incentive wage can bemore efficient than rationing capital; however, when tournamentincentives are paramount, rationing is more efficient.     

基于信息不对称的信贷配给均衡模型研究

本文建立了竞争和信息不对称条件下,信贷市场的信贷配给均衡模型,模型表明在为不同的借款人提供由贷款利率和贷款额度组成的相同贷款合同的情况下,信贷市场存在稳定的单合同均衡,信贷市场的均衡在信贷配给点达到,因而从信息不对称和均衡的角度解释了信贷配给现象。     

Credit rationing in small firm-bank relationships

I study credit rationing in small firm-bank relationships by using a unique data set of matched loan applications and contracts. I establish the degree of credit rationing by relating a firm's requested loan amount to the bank's granted amount. In line with theoretical predictions, credit rationing is higher for opaque than transparent firms at the beginning of their bank relationships and decreases over time for both. After testing for several alternative explanations, the results suggest that information and incentive problems explain the observed credit rationing and its dynamics.     

The Demand for Accounting Conservatism for Management Control

We show that conservative financial reporting arises naturallyin principal-agent settings as a means of efficiently motivating agentswhen the penalties that can be imposed on agents are limited. Weconsider an accounting system whose reports are used for contracting andwhose parameters are controlled by the principal. One advantage of our model is that the information system we describe has the accountingcharacteristic of mapping unbiased underlying information about the firminto a reduced message space. The principal can choose how that mappingoperates, i.e., conservatively, liberally, or neutrally. When penaltiesare sufficiently limited (a limited liability setting), we show that theaccounting system designed by the principal is always conservative. Alternatively, in an unlimited liability setting, any bias in the systemdepends on random circumstances, and we would not expect accountingconservatism to arise as a pervasive and enduring phenomenon.     

两种基本财务会计信息需求与供给的矛盾和协调

投资者为满足决策需要和增强契约有效性产生了两种基本的信息需求,即有关公司未来业绩和风险的信息和与经理努力程度高度相关的业绩衡量信息。现实环境的财务会计无法同时在一份报告中完美地提供上述信息,对两种基本信息需求的权衡和报告成为经理利益驱动的会计选择结果。管制和准则在一定程度上协调了投资者和经理之间的会计信息的供需矛盾。认识我国当前的财务会计及其报告的环境,对会计研究者和准则制定者来说都具有重大的意义。     

信息税及其对证券市场会计信息披露问题的治理

随着我国证券市场的发展,证券市场的法定信息披露、信息披露监管、会计准则建设等信息的公共服务越来越重要,而证券市场现行较为单一的证券交易税收制度作为公共服务开支的来源很难保证这些公共服务的有效提供。开征信息税所产生的收入、支出和调节等作用会产生一定的政策效应,如提高证券市场信息披露利益相关者对虚假信息披露问题进行治理参与的积极性,提高信息披露监管、信息披露规则建设和合法信息权利保障工作的财力支持,从而有利于证券市场信息披露质量、信息监管质量的提高,有利于证券市场有效性的提高和信息披露利益相关者合法权益的维护。