The Relation between Stock Prices and Accounting Information

The functional relation between expected stock prices and accounting information is analyzed through the theory of inverse probability. The approach models the mean of the posterior distribution for price, given the information that the accounting process provides. The implications of alternative assumptions about accounting measurement error and the unconditional price distribution are discussed. Our most refined model is consistent with recent empirical evidence showing convexity in the relationship between price and accounting information. Empirical tests, while exploratory, provide further evidence of a nonlinear relation between stock price and accounting measures of earnings and book value.     

论会计在实体经济与虚拟经济互动中的传导作用

论文探讨会计在经济体系(由实体经济与虚拟经济组成)中的作用方式及其后果。实体经济与虚拟经济基于二者之间的价值联系而互动,会计是实体经济与虚拟经济互动运行中的信号传导机制。会计真实反映的特点决定了会计计量会如实反映市场价格波动,并通过财务报告披露的传导、信息使用者非理性行为放大市场价格波动幅度,如此,会计与虚拟经济、实体经济形成一个循环因果累积的过程。经济发展的波动性和周期性是这个循环因果累积过程的结果。论文从宏观视角认识会计的经济角色,解读会计与经济周期性波动的关系,推演出会计信息披露和信息使用的改革方向。     

The information content of SEC accounting series release no. 190

The study examines the security price behavior of firms at the time of three events: the proposal of the SEC's accounting series release (ASR 190) to require replacement cost disclosures, the adoption of ASR 190, and the initial filing of the data with the SEC. The primary analysis focuses upon differential security return behavior among reporting firms. Several extensions, including a comparison with nonreporting firms, are also conducted. The basic findings indicates no security price effects and is consistent with the hypothesis that no information was provided to the market during the three time intervals studied. Alternatively, the inability to find an effect may be due to a misspecification in the research design. However, the basic finding is robust under several additional analyses and specifications.     

The Price Determination of Convertible Loan Stock: a UK Model

The paper develops a model of the price determination of convertible loan stock in the UK, the parameters of which are then estimated. The methodology employed is essentially an extension of the premium adjusted approach, the convertible price being calculated by adjusting the value of the inherent equity for the various differences between the two forms of security such as arise in income entitlement, downward protection and marketability. Also the results using this model are compared with similar models developed from USA data, showing a remarkable degree of similarity.     

Pricing European Options by Numerical Replication: Quadratic Programming with Constraints

The paper considers a regression approach to pricing European options in an incomplete market. The algorithm replicates an option by a portfolio consisting of the underlying security and a risk-free bond. We apply linear regression framework and quadratic programming with linear constraints (input = sample paths of underlying security; output = table of option prices as a function of time and price of the underlying security). We populate the model with historical prices of the underlying security (possibly massaged to the present volatility) or with Monte Carlo simulated prices. Risk neutral processes or probabilities are not needed in this framework.     

A new paradigm for forecasting security returns in a market regulated by price limits

Numerous futures markets in the US and many stock markets around the world set a “limit” price before each trading session, based on the settlement price at the end of the previous trading day. Price limits are boundaries set by market regulators to restrict large daily fluctuations in the price of securities. Once the return limit is triggered, traders cannot observe the equilibrium return that would have prevailed in the absence of such regulation. We develop an innovative approach for forecasting security returns (and prices) in a market regulated by price limits. Our forecasting model allows for multiple limit-hits. The model is robust, straightforward and easy for practitioners to use. A few numerical predictions are provided for hypothetical securities, and for seven traded futures contracts.     

Market Effects of Recognition and Disclosure

Our recognition and disclosure model reveals that price informativeness is determined by the interaction of the qualities of three information sources—the recognized amount, the disclosed information, and the information revealed by price—and accounting expertise acquisition. It also reveals that recognition of an accounting amount alters each of these, thereby affecting price informativeness. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that recognition of a highly unreliable accounting amount, rather than simply disclosing it, can result in greater price informativeness. Likewise, recognition of a highly reliable amount can result in lower price informativeness. Our findings suggest that, because of the effects of aggregation, basing recognition decisions on reliability alone is too simplistic. Reliability relative to relevance is key, not reliability per se. We also find that recognition and disclosure affect the coefficients in a regression of price on accounting amounts.     

Approximate option valuation for arbitrary stochastic processes

We show how a given probability distribution can be approximated by an arbitrary distribution in terms of a series expansion involving second and higher moments. This theoretical development is specialized to the problem of option valuation where the underlying security distribution, if not lognormal, can be approximated by a lognormally distributed random variable. The resulting option price is expressed as the sum of a Black-Scholes price plus adjustment terms which depend on the second and higher moments of the underlying security stochastic process. This approach permits the impact on the option price of skewness and kurtosis of the underlying stock's distribution to be evaluated.     

Managing earnings risk under SFAS 133/IAS 39: the case of cash flow hedges

Whereas empirical studies suggest that firm hedging is influenced by accounting standards such as SFAS 133 and IAS 39, the nature of earnings risk management remains a puzzle. I develop a model that shows how non-financial firms that prefer predictable earnings jointly optimize their hedging strategy and the choice between fair-value and hedge accounting. I also examine the implications of these decisions for earnings predictability under SFAS 133/IAS 39. In this model, which has two accounting periods, earnings uncertainty arises from economic shocks and accounting mismatches. The specific influence of accounting mismatches is isolated with two benchmarks, one for firm hedging (cash flow hedging) and another for an accounting system that fully complies with the matching principle. In this forward-looking analysis, most firms significantly decrease the hedging of long-term earnings when faced with persistent price dynamics. Under non-persistent price dynamics, the levels of long-term earnings hedging are only slightly reduced. Therefore, the influence of accounting mismatches on firm hedging is highly dependent on the economic environment in which a firm operates, which suggests that the potential influence of accounting on firm hedging may be difficult to identify in archival studies. The analysis also offers a forward-looking perspective on the changing properties of earnings since the late 1970s that supplements the existing body of archival accounting studies. For example, under persistent price dynamics, forward-looking short-term earnings volatility may increase tenfold or more for cash flow hedging under fair-value accounting compared with a perfectly matched accounting system.     

Security Analysts’ Site Visits and Stock Price Synchronicity

This paper investigates how security analysts’ corporate site visits impact listed firms’ stock-price informativeness. Examining a sample of security analysts’ visits to Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2019, we find that security analysts incorporate firm-specific information into share prices through site visits, significantly reducing the visited firms’ stock price synchronicity. This finding is robust to an alternative measure of stock price informativeness and a two-stage least-squares approach using the introduction of high-speed rail as the instrumental variable. We also find that the impact of analysts’ site visits on firms’ stock price synchronicity is more pronounced for firms with lower information disclosure quality and poor corporate governance than for other firms. Further analysis on firm characteristics documents that this effect is stronger for large-size firms, firms in the manufacturing industry, and state-owned enterprises.     

我国公共保障性住房价格机制研究

保障性住房价格是住房保障制度的重要组成部分,价格合理与否不仅关系到住房保障政策的实施效果,而且还是住房保障政策可持续发展的前提.从理论上看,保障性住房价格机制包括价格形成和价格运行机制,二者相互影响、相互制约而又相互促进.当前,我国保障性住房价格形成机制和运行机制都存在一些亟待解决的问题.本文在分析保障性住房价格形成机制、运行机制的基础上,构建一个科学合理的能指导住房保障工作实践的价格机制.     

Earnings Persistence, Losses and the Estimation of Earnings Response Coefficients

One of the major themes of capital markets accounting research concerns mapping the relation between accounting earnings and security returns. There is still not agreement on the functional form of this relation. The models analysed here are those where: the level of earnings alone, the change in earnings alone, or both, scaled by price, are used as explanatory variables for returns. This article demonstrates that if earnings are either completely permanent or entirely transitory, the earnings response coefficients (ERCs) estimated by levels and changes models should coincide. However, if earnings comprise a mixed process of permanent and transitory components, the ERC estimated by the levels will differ from that estimated by the changes model. Using losses to identify transitory components in earnings, empirical evidence consistent with these predictions is provided.
A combined model using both the level of, and change in, earnings is justified as a weighted average of an earnings and a book value valuation model (e.g., Ohlson, 1989). An alternative rationalization concerns the mitigation of an errors-in-variables problem associated with the estimation of unexpected earnings (Ali and Zarowin, 1992). The results for the combined model are more consistent with the latter. In this context, some previous empirical studies perceive the levels variable as a useful addition to the changes variable when there are transitory components in earnings. However, the evidence reported here suggests that the level of earnings, scaled by price, appears to be the fundamental earnings explanatory variable for returns (Ohlson, 1991, p. 1). The changes variable can, when the errors-in-variables problem is not mitigated by other methods, be a useful addition to the levels variable.     

The Impact of Landownership Security: Theory and Evidence from Thailand

This article develops a model of farmers' land acquisition andinvestment decisions. The model clarifies the relation betweenland values, landownership security, and credit markets. Therisk of eviction on untitled lands and the advantages in accessto credit associated with titled land are shown to account forthe higher price of titled land. Furthermore, observed landprices are distorted when credit is priced below the opportunitycost of capital and the risk of eviction is positive. Thereforesocial benefit analysis of land titling cannot utilize landprices without correcting for these distortions. The articleoffers formulas for performing such corrections. Econometricestimates of the value of legal ownership in three provincesof Thailand using cross-section land price data show a statisticallysignificant effect of ownership security on land price. Theeconometric estimates of ownership security are combined withthe formulas generated by the model to yield estimates of thesocial benefit of land titling in the three provinces. The analysisimplies that granting full legal ownership to squatters canbe a socially beneficial policy in many provinces.     

Regime Shifts in Price‐Dividend Ratios and Expected Stock Returns: A Present‐Value Approach

We incorporate regime shifts in the mean of price‐dividend ratios into the present value model of van Binsbergen and Koijen (2010) who propose a latent variable approach to modeling expected returns and dividend growth rates. We find that accounting for regime shifts results in much lower persistence of expected returns and higher volatility of expected returns, and thus higher in‐sample predictability, when compared to the results from the van Binsbergen and Koijen (2010) model. We also show that the main source of the increase in the mean of price‐dividend ratios in the mid‐1990s is a decrease in the mean of expected returns.     

Mandated accounting changes and debt covenants: The case of oil and gas accounting

The relationships among mandated accounting changes, bond covenants and security prices has been the focus of several studies. These studies have provided mixed evidence on the existence of a bond covenant effect on security prices. This paper suggests that inconclusive prior results are a consequence of inappropriately measuring the default risk of debt. Using an option pricing framework, it is shown that the debt to equity alone is not an adequate measure of default risk. In particular, both the debt to equity ratio and the total risk of the firm are necessary to adequately model the bond covenant effects of an accounting change. These theoretical propositions are supported by the empirical analysis of the security market reaction to changes in oil and gas accounting.     

Long-term dependence in common stock returns

The efficient market, martingale model of security price movements requires that the arrival of new information be promptly arbitraged away. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an arbitraged price is that statistical dependence among prices must decrease very rapidly. If persistent statistical dependence is present, the arbitraged price changes do not follow a martingale and should have an infinite variance. Using a technique for detecting long-term dependence, called R/S analysis, 200 daily stock return series are studied; many series are characterized by long-term dependence. Thus, in the presence of long-term dependence, the martingale model does not hold. Also, the distribution of security returns is non-normal stable Paretian as opposed to Gaussian.     

Comments on the valuation of derivative assets

This paper presents an alternative approach to derive the Breeden-Litzenberger valuation formula, which expresses the price of an arbitrary derivative security in terms of call options' prices. This valuation formula follows from the observation that a continuous derivative security can be replicated by a portfolio including a bond and call options with all possible exercise prices. Discrete terms are added to the original Breeden-Litzenberger formula to reflect possible discontinuities of the call option price's derivative with respect to the exercise price. These discontinuities are subsequently shown to correspond to mass points of the probability distribution of the stock price. Several applications of the Breeden-Litzenberger valuation formula are demonstrated.     

The effects of capital structure change on security prices: A study of exchange offers

This study considers the impact of capital structure change announcements on security prices. Statistically significant price adjustments in firms' common stock, preferred stock and debt related to these announcements are documented and alternative causes for these price changes are examined. The evidence is consistent with both corporate tax and wealth redistribution effects. There is also evidence that firms make decisions which do not maximize stockholder wealth. In addition, a new approach to testing the significance of public announcements on security returns is presented.     

The Cost of Deposit Insurance for Privately Held Banks: A Market Comparable Approach

Previous empirical studies that use an option pricing model to estimate deposit insurance costs have been limited to banks that issue publicly traded securities: a bank's security prices are used to infer its risk characteristics. However, if deposit insurance costs are needed for privately held banks, as would be the case under a system of risk-based insurance premiums, then an alternative method is required. This paper presents a “market comparable” approach for valuing private banks' deposit insurance. The approach first uses information on public depository institutions to identify the statistical relationships between a bank's supervisory accounting data and its risk characteristics derived from equity market data. Second, it uses these relationships to predict the risk characteristics of a private depository institution based on its supervisory accounting data. This approach is applied to over 7000 private banks and thrifts to estimate their risk characteristics and their implied risk-neutral and physical probabilities of insolvency. For the vast majority of institutions, these risk characteristics and insolvency probabilities are within a reasonable range.     

Resolution of Uncertainty and Asset Prices: Why the Timing of Information Release Might be Relevant After All

The objective of this paper is to reexamine the effects of the timing of information releases on security prices. We extend Ross (1989) by allowing the timing of information releases to affect the martingale probabilities. We show that if the early release of information is expected to resolve part of the uncertainty about the economy wide shock, it will positively affect asset prices in general and, under some conditions, the price of the information generating firm will rise more than the price of other firms. Our results are consistent with puzzling empirical observations documented in both the accounting and financial economics literatures.