The Effect of Internal Control Certification Regulatory Changes on Real and Accrual-based Earnings Management

ABSTRACT

This study examines the effect of changes in internal control certification requirements (ICCR) on the earnings management choices of Australian firms in the period 2007–2015. The Australian setting is unique as the certification requirements change from voluntary in 2004–2007 to mandatory in 2008–2014, before being abolished in 2015. Consistent with the notion that real earnings management (REM) is less susceptible to detection, the results suggest that firms place greater reliance on REM than on accrual-based earnings management (ABEM) when having to comply with certification requirements. In particular, I find voluntary certifiers have lower REM and ABEM relative to first-time certifiers in the mandatory period between 2008 and 2014, and there is an increase in REM activities among first-time mandatory period certifiers. Moreover, firms that discontinue certification, after the abolition of the requirement in 2015, switch from REM to ABEM. This suggests that regulatory ICCR changes affect firms’ earnings management choices.     

基于实际活动操控的盈余管理研究——国外文献述评及启示

基于应计利润的盈余管理研究过去一直是盈余管理研究的主流,但实务界日益呈现的证据表明,应计利润操控并非盈余管理的首要方式,管理层在面临实现特定盈余目标的动机、受限的应计利润会计自由裁量权、后安然时代国际上从紧的会计准则、管理审查和股东法律诉讼的风险时,都可能通过实际操控影响现金流从而管理盈余。对实际活动操控的盈余管理行为的探索能够拓展当前有限的盈余管理研究,有助干改善公司治理、提升盈余信息质量,促进证券市场更健康有序地发展。为此,本文首先对国际现有实际活动操控研究相关文献进行了梳理,具体包括实际活动操控方式识别的相关研究、实际活动操控经济后果及投资者反应的相关研究、应计项目操控与实际活动操控关系的相关研究;然后着重分析了实际活动操控手段的四种计量模型,最后总结了当前真实盈余管理研究的主要成果及局限性,为拓展我国的真实盈余管理研究及提高盈余质量提供了方向。     

Earnings quality and corporate payout policy linkages: An Indian context

We investigate the role of accounting quality as an antecedent of dividend payout decision of firms, for both dividend levels and dividend event, in an emerging market context. Using the data for Indian firms through the years 2006–2016, we evaluate the impact of discretionary accruals on payout decision employing Tobit and Logit regression models amid set of idiosyncratic controls. We report that better earnings quality, on average, is associated with large dividend payments for Indian firms. Moreover, the likelihood of dividend payment reduces with poor earnings quality and more so when earnings manipulation is done to increase earnings. Nonetheless, we show that higher earnings quality reduces dividends during the crisis period and also for group-affiliated firms. However, the same doesn’t hold true for dividend likelihood. The relationship is robust to the idiosyncratic controls and the causality test confirms that results are not susceptible to endogeneity issue. Overall, we conclude that better earnings quality takes care of free cash flow problems and alleviates the agency and information asymmetry related costs, thereby stimulating payout policy.     

持续经营审计意见、市场环境与盈余管理

基于审计需求的代理理论,研究差异化的市场环境作用下持续经营审计意见与盈余管理之间的关系。研究发现：持续经营审计意见导致管理层利用应计利润和真实活动进行盈余管理,非国有企业相对于国有企业更善于利用隐蔽性较高的真实活动进行盈余管理;并购事件的发生,会削弱持续经营审计意见下的盈余管理行为;当首次收到持续经营审计意见时,管理层倾向于利用应计利润的操纵进行盈余管理,随着被出具持续经营审计意见的次数增多,管理层转而利用隐蔽性较高的真实活动进行盈余管理。市场环境越透明,市场化程度越高,越能抑制持续经营审计意见下的盈余管理。     

公司战略与研发支出会计政策选择

利用2009—2015年中国A股非金融上市公司数据考察公司战略对研发活动中会计政策选择盈余管理的影响。研究发现：相比于采取防御型战略的上市公司,采取进攻型战略的上市公司更可能利用研发支出资本化进行盈余操纵。进一步的研究表明,在企业融资需求高、融资难度大时,激进的进攻型战略更可能导致上市公司利用会计政策进行盈余管理。在采用多种方式测试结果稳健性后,结论仍然成立。     

How CEO narcissism affects earnings management behaviors

This study examined whether chief executive officers’ (CEOs) with narcissistic tendencies are more likely to execute earnings management behavior because of pressure to fulfill earnings thresholds. The results revealed that a CEO who exhibits high narcissism is more likely to be involved in earnings management to compensate for her/his performance. Our findings suggest that CEO narcissism directly influences financial decisions. Considering the earnings thresholds, firms with a more narcissistic CEO experience a regulatory effect on real earnings management behavior. Studies have indicated that CEOs manipulate earnings to satisfy three primary earnings thresholds: prior year’s reported earnings, zero earnings, and analysts’ forecasts. Our empirical results provide further evidence that CEOs engage in earnings management to fulfill positive earnings thresholds and analysts’ forecasts. We infer that CEOs use the abnormal production cost method as an underlying mechanism to increase reported earnings. Our findings help clarify the relationship between CEO personality traits and earnings manipulation to assist investors with decision-making.     

The Effects of Conservative Reporting on Investor Disagreement

We examine whether the level of a firm's conditional conservatism affects investor disagreement around earnings announcement dates. Investor disagreement is relevant for its repercussions on stock market efficiency. However, the literature related to the effect of firms’ reporting policies on disagreement is scant. Prior research suggests that conservatism, by requiring higher verifiability of profits, constrains earnings overstatements and encourages more complete revelations of losses, thus improving the information environment. In this paper, we further hypothesize that these effects of conservatism enhance news credibility and decrease information asymmetry, particularly for bad news announcements. This results in a lower disagreement and improved interpretation of earnings news. We consistently find that conservatism measures are negatively associated with proxies of announcement-time investor disagreement and that this effect is stronger when the firm is reporting bad news. Additional analyses indicate that the impact of conservatism is stronger when market surprise to the announcement is greater, while it is weaker in the presence of frequent and precise voluntary disclosure that preempts the earnings announcement. Finally, we show that a higher percentage of institutional investors’ ownership and a higher level of commitment to conservatism reinforce the impact of the latter.     

Real and Accrual‐Based Earnings Management in the Pre‐ and Post‐IFRS Periods: Evidence from China

The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of both accrual‐ and activities‐based earnings management for Chinese A‐share firms surrounding the adoption of substantially IFRS‐convergent accounting standards. Since 2007, all listed A‐share firms in China have been required to comply with a new set of accounting standards that have substantially conformed to IFRS. The new reform also produced a set of new auditing standards and internal control reporting requirements. Based on a sample of 4,050 firm‐year observations from 2002 to 2011, we find that Chinese firms in the post‐IFRS period (2007–2011) are less likely to engage in accrual‐based earnings management. The magnitude of discretionary accruals also declines after IFRS adoption. In response, we see firms turning to real activities manipulation as a substitute for upward earnings management. The reduction in accrual‐based earnings management could stem from higher quality accounting standards associated with IFRS adoption and/or concurrent changes in the governance regimes introduced with the IFRS mandate. A further analysis, however, indicates that the benefits of IFRS adoption in curbing upward accrual‐based earnings manipulation are not evenly distributed across firms. Specifically, the benefit diminishes for firms that are controlled by Chinese central or local governments, are located in less developed regions, and that have weak financial performance and therefore subject to delisting status. We also find that the benefit is less pronounced for manufacturing firms than for their non‐manufacturing counterparts.     

Ownership concentration,modified audit opinion,and auditor switch: New evidence and method

This study investigates: 1) how does the ownership structure of listed firms influence the relation between their earnings management behavior and auditor opinion; 2) how does the ownership structure influence the relation between the auditor opinion and auditor switch. We find that the level of listed firms’ earnings management is positively associated with the propensity of being issued modified audit opinions (MAOs) by auditors when their ownership structure is highly concentrated. However, the issuance of MAOs is not associated with the auditor switch under such condition. On the contrary, a high level of earnings management is not associated with the propensity of being issued MAOs when firms’ ownership structure is less concentrated. Further, the issuance of MAOs may increase the likelihood of auditor switch. The empirical findings suggest that auditors may cater for the preferences of the real controller of listed firms when issuing audit opinions. Moreover, the “auditor opinion shopping” behavior by listed firms is also affected by listed firms’ ownership structure.     

A Comparison of Reporting Lags of Multinational and Domestic Firms

This study examines whether multinational firms report earnings sooner than domestic firms. When compared with domestic firms, the reporting environment and business operations of multinational firms are significantly more complex. There is a greater amount of information asymmetry between managers and shareholders of multinational firms. Therefore, multinational firms potentially face higher monitoring and external financing costs. To reduce these costs, we conjecture that managers of multinational firms take steps to reduce the information asymmetry between shareholders and management by increasing the timeliness (a proxy for relevance) of their earnings reports. Specifically, we expect multinational firms to announce earnings earlier than domestic firms. We separate earnings reporting delay into auditor‐related delay and management's discretionary delay. While test results weakly support the hypothesis that auditors take longer to audit multinational firms, there is strong evidence that managers of multinational firms release their earnings reports sooner than domestic firms.     

Foreign Equity Ownership and Information Asymmetry: Evidence from Japan

Using a large sample of Japanese firms, we investigate whether the level of foreign ownership in a firm is inversely related to information asymmetry between firm (managers) and market (outside investors). Since information asymmetry is not directly observable and, thus, is difficult to measure empirically, our analysis focuses on the link between foreign shareholding and a measurable consequence of information asymmetry; that is, the timing and magnitude of intertemporal return‐earnings associations. The empirical results support our hypothesis, and subsequent tests based on residual foreign ownership show that the relation between foreign ownership and information asymmetry is robust to the addition of various control variables such as market capitalization and cross‐corporate holdings. We also show that foreign investors tend to avoid stocks with high cross‐corporate holdings. Overall, our results suggest that foreign (institutional) investors are likely to be efficient processors of public information and are attracted to Japanese firms with low information asymmetry.     

Firms,shareholders, and financial markets

We study the influence of the financial market on the decisions of firms in the real market. To that end, we present a model in which the shareholders’ portfolio selection of assets and the decisions of the publicly traded firms are integrated through the market process. Financial access alters the objective function of the firms, and the market interaction of shareholders substantially influences firms’ behavior in the real sector. After characterizing the unique equilibrium, we show that the financial sector integrates the preferences of all shareholders into the decisions for production and ownership structure. The participation from investors in the financial market also limits the firms’ ability to manipulate real prices, i.e., there is a loss of market power in the real sector. Note that, while the loss of market power changes expected profits, it is not detrimental to shareholders since the expected return of equity share depends on the variance (and not the mean) of profits. Indeed, any change in expected profits is absorbed by the financial price. We also show that financial access increases production, thereby altering the distribution of profits. In particular, financial access induces firms to take on more risk. Finally, financial access makes the relationship between risk-aversion and risk-taking ambiguous. For example, it is possible that an increase in risk-aversion leads to more risk-taking, i.e., the variance of real profits increases.     

The Effect of CEO Stock-Based Compensation on the Pricing of Future Earnings

This paper examines whether CEO stock-based compensation has an effect on the market’s ability to predict future earnings. When stock-based compensation motivates managers to share their private information with shareholders, it will expedite the pricing of future earnings in current stock prices. In contrast, when equity-compensated managers attempt to temporarily manipulate the stock price to maximize their own benefit rather than that of shareholders, the market may not fully anticipate future performance. We find that a CEO’s stock-based compensation strengthens the association between current returns and future earnings, indicating that more information about future earnings is reflected in current stock prices. In addition, we find that the positive effect is weaker for firms that have a high level of signed discretionary accruals or a low management forecast frequency. Overall, our study suggests that on average, equity-based compensation improves the informativeness of stock prices about future earnings, while opportunistic discretionary accruals or lowered earnings guidance hamper this improvement.     

Do voluntary disclosures of bad news improve liquidity?

Can managers improve market liquidity and lower the cost of capital by providing voluntary earnings guidance? This study examines the impact of profit warnings on market liquidity and finds that voluntary disclosure of bad news actually improves market liquidity. By conducting an empirical study over the period 1995–2010 on NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX listed firms, we find that firms that issue profit warnings show enhanced market liquidity during the post-announcement period. We show that profit warnings reduce information asymmetry and lower bid-ask spreads and increase trading volumes. These results are invariant to daily (short run) and monthly (long run) data after controlling for firm specific attributes. The results have major corporate policy implications. By voluntarily disclosing negative earnings guidance by managers, firms will experience significant improvement in market liquidity, thereby lowering the cost of capital. Our results are even more profound for firms that release bad news with extremely negative stock market impact. In other words, voluntary disclosure of bad news is good for market liquidity.     

民营上市公司CEO持股缓解了代理冲突吗？——基于真实活动盈余管理视角的分析

基于真实活动盈余管理视角,研究了我国民营上市公司CEO持股能否在一定程度上缓解代理冲突。研究发现：CEO持股能够抑制民营上市公司真实活动盈余管理,并且随着CEO持股比例的增加,真实活动盈余管理水平下降,说明CEO持股能够在一定程度上缓解投资者与企业管理层的代理冲突,实现协同效应;董事长与CEO两职兼任时,CEO持股对真实活动盈余管理的抑制效应会加强;深入研究发现,真实活动盈余管理对公司未来业绩产生不利影响,尤其是对企业长期业绩,而CEO持股能够降低真实活动盈余管理给公司业绩带来的负面效应。基于真实活动盈余管理,研究支持了我国民营上市公司CEO持股能够体现出一定的协同效应,缓解投资者与企业管理层的代理冲突。     

诉讼风险如何影响事务所低价揽客经济后果?——来自公司盈余管理的经验证据

近年来,会计师事务所低价揽客行为频发,其经济后果受到广泛关注。在此背景下,基于诉讼风险视角,实证检验事务所低价揽客行为对企业盈余管理的影响。研究发现,存在低价揽客行为的事务所审计的客户公司有着更高程度的盈余管理,但这种关系主要由非十大所的低价揽客行为所驱动;当诉讼风险增加时,事务所低价揽客与公司盈余管理之间的正向关系有所减弱,诉讼风险的这种调节作用主要存在于非十大所审计的企业以及进行正向盈余管理的企业中。这些结果表明,与大所相比,小所的低价揽客行为在加剧企业盈余管理方面产生的经济后果更为严重,而较高的诉讼风险可缓解这一行为带来的不良后果。因此,抑制企业盈余管理,应有针对性地规范小所的审计定价行为,加大其低价揽客行为的诉讼成本。     

SFAS 133 and income smoothing via discretionary accruals: The role of hedge effectiveness and market volatility

This study investigates whether the Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 133 (SFAS 133) influences firms’ income smoothing via discretionary accruals decisions. Moreover, we investigate whether the level of hedge effectiveness and market volatility affects the impact of SFAS 133 on firms’ income smoothing via discretionary accruals decisions. Consistent with our predictions, we find a significant increase in income smoothing via discretionary accruals activity after the adoption of SFAS 133. We also find that income smoothing via discretionary accruals after the adoption of SFAS 133 increases with the level of hedge ineffectiveness. By contrast, we find that perfect hedgers do not engage in more income smoothing via discretionary accruals after the adoption of SFAS 133. Finally, we find that the higher the market volatility is the larger the income smoothing is via discretionary accruals after the adoption of SFAS 133. This implies that higher market volatility makes it more difficult for firms to meet hedge accounting requirements, thereby increasing unmanaged earnings volatility and income smoothing. Prior studies suggest that regulators are expressing concern about the effect of earnings management on the quality of reported earnings and the functioning of capital markets (e.g., Barton, 2001 ). In this regard, our findings imply that accounting standard setters should take into account the trade‐off between transparency and income smoothing.     

The European Market Abuse Directive: Has it Worked?

In this paper, we examine whether the Market Abuse Directive (MAD) has been effective in achieving its objectives of deterring the market manipulation activities, increasing the timeliness of information and decreasing the disclosure of inside information to select groups. Our sample consists of firms listed on Frankfurt Stock Exchange. We use stock prices and analysts' forecast‐based proxies to examine the impact and effectiveness of MAD. The analysis based on these two set of proxies provides evidence that the adoption of MAD has been effective. In particular, we find that after the implementation of MAD, on average, (1) the volatility of stock prices around earnings announcement declines, (2) stock prices remain closer to their post earnings announcement level during the period before earnings announcement, (3) the accuracy of analyst forecasts improves, (4) the dispersion of analyst forecasts decreases, and (5) the number of analysts following a company declines.     

高管股权激励、盈余管理与审计定价——基于盈余管理异质性的视角

使用2009—2013年我国创业板、中小板上市公司数据,基于盈余管理异质性的视角实证检验了高管股权激励与审计定价的关系。通过对盈余管理类型及方向的细分,研究发现,在高管股权激励与审计定价两者关系的传导路径上,真实盈余管理存在部分中介效应,操纵性应计盈余管理间接效应不显著。通过调增方向与调减方向的真实盈余管理,高管股权激励与审计定价分别呈显著负相关、显著正相关关系,说明高管股权激励起到双向作用,并通过真实盈余管理行为对审计定价产生了影响。另外,调减方向的两类盈余管理都与审计定价呈显著正相关关系,说明审计机构更加注重调减方向的盈余管理所带来的风险,从而投入更多的审计资源,审计定价也随之提高。     

审计风险成因--基于信息经济学的分析

文章从信息经济学的角度,通过对自然存在的不确定性以及股东和审计人员、管理层与审计人员之间的信息不对称等对审计风险的影响的分析表明,建立和完善审计风险的管理体制,完善审计市场结构、公司与事务所的治理结构,引入必要的激励和约束机制,可以减少交易各方的信息不对称,从而改善审计业务市场的交易效率和效益,降低社会性的审计风险水平。