Efectividad del proyecto de convergencia contable mexicano emprendido a partir de 2005: evidencia empírica (1997-2010)

The purpose of our study is to know whether the efforts carried out by the Mexican Council for Financial Information managed to reduce the differences in the calculation of the Mexican accounting reports and those calculated under American principles (US GAAP) in the period 1997-2010. To achieve the objectives set out, we analyzed 230 20-F reports that correspond to 27 Mexican companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange. The results obtained in the implementation of the linear regression models show the existence of certain factors that explain the degree of comparability of fundamental accounting variables obtained under Mexican GAAP and US GAAP.     

Social and Environmental Disclosure and Corporate Characteristics: A Research Note and Extension

This paper is concerned with the attempts to explain the disclosure of social and environmental information in the annual reports of large companies by reference to observable characteristics of those companies. An extensive literature has sought to establish whether variables such as corporate size, profit and industry segments can explain corporations' disclosure practices. The results from that predominantly North American and Australasian literature are largely inconclusive. This paper provides an extension of that literature by considering a more disaggregated specification of social and environmental disclosure and by employing a detailed time-series data set. By so doing, the paper tests two possible explanations for the inconclusiveness of prior research: namely that any relationships between corporate characteristics and disclosure are dependent upon the type of disclosure and that any such relationships are not stable through time. The results provide support for these explanations as sufficient, if not necessary, conditions for explaining the inconsistency in prior results.     

新会计准则对深市主板公司的影响分析

文章以新会计准则的变化为切入点，分析了新会计准则对2006年度深市主板公司的具体影响。统计发现，按新会计准则要求进行追溯调整导致的净资产增幅为0.6％，总体影响不大。新准则对公司未来财务状况、经营成果的影响是全方位的，但具体影响程度需依2007年各公司具体业务情况而定。文章最后针对新旧准则衔接过程中出现的问题提出了应对措施。     

PREPARING PERFORMANCE INFORMATION IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE

This paper examines performance information and reporting issues through a survey of the views of public sector managers in Australia regarding the importance of selected performance information in achieving the objectives of an organization, the extent of information development, usefulness for reporting in annual reports, and actual reporting. The results reveal the existence of a gap between information considered important, the extent of development, and information considered useful for annual reporting. Most non‐financial performance information is still being developed and less frequently reported, particularly output quality information.     

市场反应、生存模型与信息披露

本文应用生存模型对上市公司年报信息披露后股票市场价格反应时间进行研究，选择沪深两市在2004年710家样本公司年报信息披露后的股票价格作为研究对象，使用生存模型研究股价的变动方向和价格沿同一方向持续变动的时间。研究结果表明，上市公司的业绩变量、行业因素、市场交易状况和审计意见类型对市场反应时间有明显的影响，投资者可以选取关键指标来预测市场反应。     

Cross-market information transfers of ADR firms: An investigation of emerging market economies

Level II and III ADRs permit issuers to be listed on the major U.S. exchanges with the stipulation that they comply with extensive SEC disclosure requirements. Foreign private issuers are compelled to file a set of audited financial statements prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP, or alternatively, IFRS or Home Country Accounting Principles with attendant reconciliation to U.S. GAAP prior to 2008. Although the Form 20-F reconciliation is discontinued in 2008 for IFRS filers, non-U.S. issuers are required to satisfy other Form 20-F stipulations such as expanded Item 17 and Item 18 disclosures. We conjecture that non-U.S. firms choosing to be listed on the major U.S. exchanges will incur the added costs associated with the supplemental disclosure requirements in order to attract sufficient investor attention as to have the disclosures impounded in the home country equity share price in the manner described by Fishman et al. (1989). Because a prominent attribute of ADR firms is that they benefit from multiple-market trading, we investigate whether the Form 20-F disclosure cross-market information transfers are associated with emerging market economy status. We employ models of the cross-market ADR and equity security share returns and trading volume controlling for the emerging economy status and incremental firm-specific SEC Form 20-F accounting principles disclosures. Preliminary results indicate that (1) U.S. listed ADR firms from emerging economies experience greater cross-market information transfers associated with the SEC Form 20-F filing, and (2) that the increased cross-market information transfers associated with the SEC Form 20-F filing are proportional to the difference in quality of accounting principles employed for home country reporting purposes vis-à-vis the accounting principles employed for SEC Form 20-F reporting purposes. Results are consistent with a feedback process through which the new information disclosed by the SEC Form 20-F reporting requirements in the ADR market attenuates the price discovery process in the home country equity market when the difference in information environment quality is large.     

2005年深市公司股改承诺事项履行情况分析

上市公司股改方案中的承诺能否得到履行及履行的效果直接决定股权分置改革的成败。本文分析了股改方案中主要承诺的类型及每种承诺的履行情况、市场评价等，并提出了股改承诺监管的措施：在对股改承诺的监管过程中需要从完善法规出发，配套相关指引，并加强舆论监督，促使控股股东很好地履行在股改中的承诺。     

2005年深市公司利润分配状况分析

本文首先阐述了深市主板公司2005年利润分配的总情况及特点,2005年利润分配水平下降的主要原因是股改中部分公司已提出了利润分配方案。根据近年来的利润分配及其他财务数据,本文分析了影响公司利润分配水平的诸因素,对强制分红制度的理论和实践进行了探讨,最后提出了对利润分配的政策建议。     

中国证券市场年报补丁公司特征研究

在上市公司午报披露之后，屡屡可见公司对年报的各类补充公告与更正公告（即年报补丁），年报朴丁不仅受到媒体的强烈抨击，也为监管部门所关注。本文选取发布2001～2003年年报补丁的公司作为研究样本，并分年度、行业、公司规模选取配对样本，考察补丁公司的经济特征，研究表明，相对配对样本而言，补丁公司的业绩较差，公目的总资产增长较快，较少设置审计委员会，且审计质量较差。     

中小企业板上市公司执行新会计准则情况分析

财政部于2006年2月25日发布了新会计准则，并规定自2007年1月1日起在上市公司范围内施行。本文首次全面系统地对中小企业板上市公司执行新会计准则情况进行了研究，分析了新会计准则对上市公司2006年末股东权益、追溯调整后的2006年第一季度利润表及2007年第一季度报告的影响，在此基础上分析了执行过程中普遍存在的问题，提出了有针对性的监管建议，为新会计准则下的上市公司会计监管工作做出了有益探索。     

Does Form 20-F reconciliation elimination for IFRS filers affect the risk forecasting ability of accounting numbers?

This study investigates the effect of the elimination of Form 20-F reconciliation items on the risk relevance of accounting information. Using a sample of U.S. companies and American depositary receipts adopting domestic standards that are generally in accordance or fully compliant with IFRS, this paper finds that IFRS better reflect macroeconomic fluctuations after Form 20-F reconciliation elimination. This paper also finds that Form 20-F reconciliation elimination has no negative effect on the usefulness of accounting data under IFRS in the formulation of superior risk forecasts. Further, this paper finds that the elimination of Form 20-F reconciliation items is associated with lower idiosyncratic risk. Overall, the findings indicate some benefits from Form 20-F reconciliation elimination.     

Effect of foreign GAAP earnings and Form 20-F reconciliations on revisions of analysts' forecasts

A controversial area of U.S. securities regulations involves the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) financial reporting requirements for foreign firms, specifically, the necessity of providing a quantitative reconciliation to U.S. GAAP (Form 20-F). The results of earnings-returns research to date indicate that the release of foreign GAAP earnings provides important information. However, the results of earnings-returns studies using reconciled information are mixed. Instead of using an earnings-returns methodology adopted in prior research, this study utilizes analysts' revisions as a market indicator of the effect of information released in foreign GAAP earnings and the reconciled information in Form 20-F. Additionally, the study investigates the influence of four firm-specific variables in the firm's information environment—similarities of accounting systems, analyst following, difference between reconciled earnings and foreign GAAP earnings, and dispersion of analysts' expectations—on positive abnormal revision activities of financial analysts at the time of filing Form 20-F.The results indicate that the release of foreign GAAP earnings (at earnings announcement dates) and reconciled information (at the time of filing Form 20-F) contains relevant information as measured by analysts' revisions. Further, variables representing analyst following, change in reconciled earnings, and dispersion of analysts' expectations are significant in explaining the variation observed in positive abnormal revisions.     

Report of Plain English Writing

Plain English is a generic term for communication in English that emphasizes clarity, brevity, and the avoidance of technical language. This paper aims to introduce the development of the plain English...     

Using Form 20-F reconciliations to internationalize an accounting course

Accounting courses and textbooks in the United States focus on US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). As a result, US accounting students have little exposure to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and to differences between these standards and US GAAP. To familiarize students with the differences between IFRS and US GAAP, accounting instructors can develop assignments based upon the reconciliation of IFRS to US GAAP net income included in Form 20-F, the annual document submitted to the SEC by non-US firms. The course assignment described in this paper provides students with a “road map” of the differences underlying specific company financial reporting, and helps instructors identify where these differences occur. The assignment represents an innovative way of integrating international financial reporting standards and SEC reporting requirements into a higher level undergraduate or graduate accounting course.     

Timeliness of corporate and audit reports: Some empirical evidence in the French context

The issue of timeliness of financial reporting, an important qualitative characteristic of accounting information, has received much attention from regulatory and professional bodies in France in recent years. The increasing presence of international investors, particularly from the US, on the Paris Stock Exchange adds to the importance of this issue. The timeliness of corporate and audit reports in the French context is analyzed by examining the trend in reporting delay of companies, the effect that qualified reports have on the timeliness of corporate reporting, and the relationship between reporting behavior and types of audit reports over a 10-year period. The data are taken from more than 5000 annual reports of French publicly held companies for the years 1986-1995. These bear witness to an improvement in timeliness of corporate and audit reports. This improvement is greater for reports from consolidated accounts of groups than those from annual accounts of companies. There is also evidence that qualified audit opinions were released later than unqualified opinions and that, in general, the more serious the qualification, the greater the delay.     

A New Measure of Disclosure Quality: The Level of Disaggregation of Accounting Data in Annual Reports

We construct a new, parsimonious, measure of disclosure quality—disaggregation quality (DQ)—and offer validation tests. DQ captures the level of disaggregation of accounting data through a count of nonmissing Compustat line items, and reflects the extent of details in firms’ annual reports. Conceptually, DQ differs from existing disclosure measures in that it captures the “fineness” of data and is based on a comprehensive set of accounting line items in annual reports. Unlike existing measures, which are usually applicable for a subset of firms or are based on a subset of information items, DQ can be generated for the universe of Compustat industrial firms. We conduct three sets of validation tests by examining DQ's association with variables predicted by prior literature to be associated with information quality. DQ is negatively (positively) associated with analyst forecast dispersion (accuracy) and negatively associated with bid‐ask spreads and cost of equity. These associations continue to hold after we control for firm fundamentals. Taken together, results from this battery of validation tests are consistent with our measure capturing disclosure quality.