新会计准则与盈余管理

本文以狭义的盈余管理为出发点,结合今年开始实施的新会计准则体系,全面分析了会计准则与盈余管理的关系,澄清了理论与实务界对二者关系的模糊认识;深入分析了新会计准则对企业盈余管理的时空影响及新形势下企业盈余管理的新特点,从博弈、法治和德治等视角提出了治理盈余管理的若干合理化建议。     

中央银行会计标准重塑——基于国内外会计准则趋同背景下的思考

中国人民银行作为我国的中央银行,担负着制定和执行货币政策、维护金融稳定、提供金融服务等职责.公众对中央银行的会计信息愈来愈关注,而准确的会计信息需要科学的会计标准的规范.政府会计准则出台后,建立与国内外会计准则相适应的央行会计标准显得尤为迫切.本文通过分析目前人民银行会计标准的主要内容及其局限性,指出我国中央银行会计标准改革的必要性,并借鉴政府会计准则的经验尝试从央行会计准则的制定导向、核算基础、计量属性等方面重塑人民银行会计标准的基本构架.     

International Accounting Standards and Accounting Quality

We examine whether application of International Accounting Standards (IAS) is associated with higher accounting quality. The application of IAS reflects combined effects of features of the financial reporting system, including standards, their interpretation, enforcement, and litigation. We find that firms applying IAS from 21 countries generally evidence less earnings management, more timely loss recognition, and more value relevance of accounting amounts than do matched sample firms applying non‐U.S. domestic standards. Differences in accounting quality between the two groups of firms in the period before the IAS firms adopt IAS do not account for the postadoption differences. Firms applying IAS generally evidence an improvement in accounting quality between the pre‐ and postadoption periods. Although we cannot be sure our findings are attributable to the change in the financial reporting system rather than to changes in firms' incentives and the economic environment, we include research design features to mitigate effects of both.     

我国会计标准与国际会计标准的差异分析及国际趋同的思考

本文从我国B股上市公司、金融类上市公司双重审计的制度背景出发 ,以B股和金融类上市公司的年度报告中的双重审计差异为基础 ,对我国会计标准和国际会计标准进行综合比较研究 ,对存在的差异做出了分析与评价 ,并提供了有关的政策建议。     

Accounting Standards and Earnings Management: Evidence from China

This article examines the effect of an asset impairment–related regulatory reform on earnings management in China. Chinese Accounting Standard No. 8 (CAS No. 8), which prohibits the reversal of long‐lived asset impairments, was promulgated to constrain managerial opportunism with respect to previously recognized impairment loss reversal. CAS No. 8 forbids the reversal of long‐lived asset impairment losses only, while allowing the reversal of short‐term asset impairment losses. Based on a sample of China's A‐share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange during the period 2001–2008, we reveal that managers use less current asset write‐downs and more reversals in the post–CAS No. 8 period. However, such reporting practices do not appear to be influenced by managerial incentives to avoid reporting losses and/or for “big bath” accounting purposes.     

Earnings Predictability,Bond Ratings,and Bond Yields

We examine the role that earnings predictability plays in establishing a firm’s cost of debt capital by measuring its influence on establishing a new issue’s bond rating. In addition, we also examine the effects of earnings predictability on the initial pricing of the firm’s debt. Using new corporate bond issues from the period 1990–2000, our results indicate that the degree of predictability of a firm’s earnings is positively associated with a firm’s bond rating. Moreover, earnings predictability is also documented to be negatively associated with the offering yield. Importantly, bond rating classification accuracy is improved when specific measures of a firm’s earnings predictability are added to a robust model.JEL Classification:     

Earnings Predictability, Information Asymmetry, and Market Liquidity

We investigate the relation between earnings predictability, information asymmetry and the behavior of the adverse selection cost component of the bid-ask spread around quarterly earnings announcements for NASDAQ firms. While we find an increase in the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread on the day of and the day prior to quarterly earnings announcements for firms with less predictable earnings, we find no evidence of such changes for firms with more predictable earnings. During a non-announcement period, we find that firms with relatively less predictable earnings have consistently higher total bid-ask spreads than firms with more predictable earnings. This finding suggests that firms with relatively less predictable earnings have a higher cost of equity capital than comparable firms with more predictable earning streams, ceteris paribus. Hence, earnings predictability may be a legitimate concern of managers who wish to minimize their cost of equity capital at least as it pertains to bid-ask spreads.     

权证会计处理的国际准则及其借鉴

本文在简要介绍权证产品及其要素、种类和功能的基础上,重点围绕国际会计准则关于金融工具会计的相关规定,对权证的会计处理原则和方法进行了探讨,并就其对我国会计及信息披露发展的启示进行了分析,以期为我国权证产品的成功推出进行一些有益的探索.     

国际评估准则理事会与国际会计准则委员会加强联系

为了加强与国际会计准则委员会(IASB)的合作,提升国际评估准则理事会(IVSC)和国际评估准则在全球范围内的影响力,国际评估准则理事会积极与国际会计准则委员会进行联系和会谈.     

Goodwill Accounting in Selected Countries and the Harmonization of International Accounting Standards

Economic and financial markets interpenetrate and national economies are increasingly interdependent. This results in a growing need for comparability of accounting procedures internationally. Accounting for goodwill illustrates this phenomenon. By specifying the recommended asset treatment for purchased, positive goodwill, and the five-year amortization period, IASC has taken a significant step towards harmonization of goodwill accounting. As noted in the article, however, the implications for consolidated income may be quite drastic. This is especially so with respect to the implications of the revised IAS 22 (following IAS ED 32) for potential leveraged corporate buy-outs.     

从盈余管理角度论会计准则的完善

近年来,国内资本市场的盈余管理引起了越来越多的关注。过度的盈余管理影响了市场资源的优化配置,损害了投资者的利益。文章分析了现行会计准则对盈余管理的影响,进而提出了规范盈余管理、完善会计准则的建议。     

Permanent and Transitory Earnings,Accounting Recording Lag,and the Earnings Coefficient

In this paper, (1) wedefine precisely the terms permanent and transitory earnings;(2) we delineate the effects of the degree of permanence andof accounting recording lag on estimates of the slope coefficientfrom a returns-earnings regression and (3) we examine the relationbetween the estimates of the earnings coefficient and observablevariables that may indicate (i) the extent to which earningsare more or less permanent, and (ii) the extent to which valuerelevant events are recorded in accounting earnings in a timelyfashion. Our main point is that attributing differences in thereturns-earnings relation to one of these effects without controllingfor the other may lead to erroneous conclusions.     

On the Relation between Conservatism in Accounting Standards and Incentives for Earnings Management

This paper studies the role of conservative accounting standards in alleviating rational yet dysfunctional unobservable earnings manipulation. We show that when accounting numbers serve both the valuation role (in which potential investors use accounting reports to assess a firm's expected future payoff) and the stewardship role (in which current shareholders rely on the same reports to monitor their risk‐averse manager), current firm owners have incentives to engage in earnings management. Such manipulation reduces accounting numbers' stewardship value and leads to inferior risk sharing. We then show that risk sharing, and hence contract efficiency, can be improved under a conservative accounting standard where, absent earnings management, accounting earnings represent true economic earnings with a downward bias, compared with under an unbiased standard where, absent earnings management, accounting earnings represent true economic earnings without bias.     

International Accounting Standards: An Alternative Rationale

International aspects of financial reporting have begun to receive an increasing amount of attention by a range of organizations. There is a need then, to appraise critically the performance and the underlying rationale of those agencies responsible for influencing international practices. Identification and appraisal of the rationale underlying the existence of those agencies is a necessary step in determining their potential for achieving the objectives which they have been set. This paper examines the rationale behind one of these agencies, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC, 1977). Unlike many others, the paper does not attempt to explain why we should have an organization such as the IASC and the standards it produces. Rather, it represents an attempt to explain why we do have an organization such as the IASC. To that end, an alternative rationale is suggested for the output of the IASC, based on theories of professional selfinterest, agency, and property rights. It is argued that that rationale is likely to have significantly greater explanatory power in respect of the present output produced by the IASC than those traditionally presented.     

保险国际会计准则追踪

国际会计准则委员会(IASC,现已改组为IASB)在1999年末发布了关于保险国际会计准则的问题报告(Issues Paper).这是IASC在保险国际会计准则这一项目上的初步成果.     

Measuring convergence of National Accounting Standards with International Financial Reporting Standards

This paper analyses three methods for measuring the success achieved in effecting convergence between any two sets of accounting standards. We begin by reviewing a measurement method based on the concept of Euclidean distances. We then propose two better measures (involving Jaccard's coefficients and Spearman's coefficients) to assess the progress of National Accounting Standards setting bodies in converging their standards with International Financial Reporting Standards [IFRS]. For illustrative purposes, we measure the convergence of National Accounting Standards in Portugal with International Accounting Standards [IAS] and IFRS over the period 1977–2003.     

The Impact of Adopting International Accounting Standards on the Harmonization of Accounting Practices

Over the past few decades numerous organizations have been actively participating in the efforts to improve the comparability of financial reporting. Many studies have discussed the benefits and drawbacks of comparability. This study investigated the affect on the harmonization, or comparability, of accounting practices when a sample of companies choose to use international accounting standards (IASs) when preparing financial reports.This study analyzed trends in the I index, a measure of concentration for the use of a particular accounting practice introduced by van der Tas, to determine if the choice of accounting methods by a sample of Swiss companies became more aligned with a sample of companies from three other countries. The study included a control sample of Swiss companies that did not switch from reporting using local Swiss standards during the same time period, 1988 through 1995. Four accounting practices were included; depreciation, inventory, financial statement cost basis, and consolidation practices. The practices used were compared with a sample of companies from three countries; Japan, the UK, and the US.The results indicated that across the 8-year period, the majority of the I indices comparisons were positive and statistically significant. However, the results did not support that these increases were due primarily to the adoption of IASs.