Office Size of Big 4 Auditors and Client Restatements

Francis and Yu (2009) and Choi, Kim, Kim, and Zang (2010) report evidence that Big 4 audits are of higher quality when the engagement office is of larger size. Specifically, client earnings quality is higher and auditors in larger offices are more likely to issue going‐concern audit reports. We extend this line of research to test if larger Big 4 offices have fewer client restatements. A client restatement provides more direct evidence of a low‐quality audit than earnings quality metrics or going‐concern reports, because a restatement indicates the client's auditor did not effectively enforce the correct application of GAAP at the time the original financial statements were issued. We analyze 2,557 firm‐year restatements in a sample of 23,190 financial statements originally issued by U.S. firms from 2003 to 2008. We find that Big 4 office size is associated with fewer client restatements after controlling for innate client characteristics that may affect restatements (client size, financial performance, industry membership, nonfinancial measures, off‐balance sheet activities, and market‐related measures), and a set of controls for other auditor factors such as fees and industry expertise. The study raises important questions about the ability of smaller offices to deliver high‐quality audits for SEC registrants.     

Revealing Corporate Financial Misreporting

This study examines how frequently firms restate when they materially misstate their financial statements using stock option backdating as the setting. Stock option backdating provides a unique opportunity to study this issue because it is possible to estimate misstatements with publicly available information to a high level of confidence, and the extensive media coverage of backdating notified boards of directors of the significant risk of misstatement. After identifying firms that materially misstated earnings due to stock option backdating with 95 percent (99 percent) probability, we find that only 11.5 percent (16.1 percent) of these firms subsequently restated. Restating firms are larger, have greater board independence, higher litigation risk and ROA, a lower market‐to‐book ratio, less discretionary accruals, and are more likely to have a CFO that was not involved in backdating. Restating firms are also more likely to disclose other adverse news, face securities litigation, and turn over the CFO than firms that appear to materially backdate but do not restate. Since nearly 9 of 10 firms failed to restate, our results give pause to researchers who use restatements as an indicator of misreporting, and to regulators who levy penalties on those who do self‐report.     

股权激励视角的管理层自利性财务重述研究

文章从股权激励视角出发,选取了2008年深沪两市发布更正公告的上市公司为研究样本,实证检验股权激励与财务重述的关系。研究结果表明,股权激励与财务重述有着显著的正相关关系。这为我国上市公司财务重述的报酬契约动因提供了进一步的证据。即在实施股权激励的情况下,由于会计业绩指标的固有局限性、股票市场的弱有效性、上市公司治理结构缺位等,股权激励很有可能引发更正类的、坏消息类的财务重述。关键词：财务重述;年报补丁：股权激励     

The Determinants and Consequences of Information Acquisition via EDGAR

Using a novel data set that tracks all web traffic on the SEC's EDGAR servers from 2008 to 2011, we examine the determinants and capital market consequences of investor information acquisition of SEC filings. The average user employs the database very few times per quarter and most users target specific filing types such as periodic accounting reports; a small subset of users employ EDGAR almost daily and access many filings. EDGAR activity is positively related with corporate events (particularly restatements, earnings announcements, and acquisition announcements), poor stock performance, and the strength of a firm's information environment. EDGAR activity is related to, but distinct from, other proxies of investor interest such as trading volume, business press articles, and Google searches. Finally, information acquisition via EDGAR, both to obtain earnings news and to provide context for it, has a positive influence on market efficiency with respect to earnings news. Overall, our results are important because they provide a unique, user‐based perspective on investor access of mandatory disclosures and its impact on price formation.     

Lenders’ Response to Peer and Customer Restatements

We investigate whether restatements announced by economically related firms influence the contract terms a borrower receives from lenders. A restatement by a major customer firm increases the loan spread of a borrower by 11 basis points, on average. The contagion effects of customer restatements are higher (45 basis points) when a borrower's switching costs are high. Restatements by peer firms in the same industry also increase a borrower's loan spread, and this increase occurs regardless of restatement severity. Moreover, the sensitivity of loan spread to peer restatements is significantly greater when the restating peer firms are also in the bank's lending portfolio, suggesting that a lender's personal experience with restatements in an industry makes it more attuned to the potential implications of these restatements for the borrowing firm. Finally, our results suggest that lenders utilize information from peer restatements to anticipate future restatements by the borrowing firm.     

Option Trading,Price Discovery,and Earnings News Dissemination*

Abstract. Option market activity increases by more than 10 percent in the four days before quarterly earnings announcements. We show that the direction of this preannouncement trading foreshadows subsequent earnings news. Specifically, we find option traders initiate a greater proportion of long (short) positions immediately before “good” (“bad”) earnings news. Midquote returns to active-side option trades are positive during nonannouncement periods and are significantly higher immediately prior to earnings announcements. Bid-ask spreads for options widen during the announcement period, but traders do not gravitate toward high delta contracts. Collectively, the evidence shows option traders participate generally in price discovery (the incorporation of private information in price), and more specifically in the dissemination of earnings news.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Online Trading on Stock Price and Trading Volume Reactions to Earnings Announcements*

This study provides evidence regarding the effects of online trading on stock price and trading volume reactions to quarterly earnings announcements. We test for differences in stock price and volume reactions to quarterly earnings announcements between a period with a significant amount of online trading (1996‐99) and a period without online trading (1992‐95). We conjecture that online trading has increased the proportion of naive investors in the market. We predict that this will result in (1) a decrease in the average precision of investor information prior to earnings announcements leading to higher earnings response coefficients (ERCs), (2) an increase in differential interpretation of earnings leading to higher trading volume reactions that are unrelated to price change, and (3) a decrease in differential prior precision leading to a decrease in the association between trading volume and absolute price change. We find evidence consistent with all three predictions. Our findings are relevant for assessing the validity of concerns about online trading expressed by regulators and the validity of theoretical models of trade with asymmetrically informed investors.     

Market Response to Earnings Surprises Conditional on Reasons for an Auditor Change*

Our interest in this study is the relative informativeness of earnings announcements reported before and after Form 8‐K disclosures of the reason for an auditor change. We appeal to several models that predict that the market's response to an earnings surprise is positively related to the perceived precision of the earnings report. We predict that the Form 8‐K reason disclosures aid investors in updating their expectations of earnings precision by providing useful information about the financial reporting process that produces the earnings report. For 802 auditor changes from late 1991 through late 1997, the average price response per unit of earnings surprise is lower subsequent to an auditor change for companies that switched for disagreement‐related or fee‐related reasons and higher for those that switched for service‐related reasons. This paper provides further evidence on the effects of differential earnings quality on differences in the returns‐earnings relation across companies and over time as well as the efficacy of Form 8‐K disclosures of reasons for auditor changes.     

重大会计差错临时披露的盈余信息含量分析

文章以2004-2005年期间353家发生重大会计差错更正的A股上市公司为样本,运用Wilson（2005）的一期模型．检验了重大会计差错更正披露前后的季度盈余信息含量。研究发现,重大会计差错更正披露减少了此后季度盈余公告的信息含量,特别是重大会计差错更正披露前后季度盈余的ERC呈现u形;但是这种影响是暂时的。从重大会计差错更正披露后的第二季度到第四季度,盈余公告的信息含量很快恢复到重大会计差错更正披露前盈余公告信息含量;另外,投资者对重大会计差错更正临时披露信息是有反应的,核心盈余差错更正披露减少了此后四个季度的盈余公告信息含量。     

亏损上市公司利用八项计提进行盈余管理的实证分析

在具有盈余管理动机的上市公司中,亏损公司盈余管理动机最为强烈.文章采用抽样技术对2003-2005年度部分亏损公司资产减值的八项计提进行了分项检验,发现被主要用于盈余管理的项目是坏账准备、短期投资跌价准备、存货跌价准备、固定资产减值准备等.其中固定资产与无形资产属于长期资产,2007年开始将不允许转回,但存货跌价准备、坏账准备、短期投资跌价准备等仍然可以转回,新会计准则并没有堵住这些通道.     

Investor Sentiment,Misstatements, and Auditor Behavior*

High investor sentiment has been linked with opportunistic managerial behavior in the face of more optimistic investors and analysts. We extend this line of work by documenting that the likelihood of misstatements is higher when sentiment is high. Although this would suggest elevated audit risk, we posit that a contemporaneous reduction in auditors' litigation cost could drive down audit fees and going concern opinion (GCO) reporting conservatism in order to please clientele. Consistent with this notion, we document that auditors charge lower fees and report GCOs less conservatively when sentiment is high. However, this reduction in reporting conservatism is unwarranted; results reveal that auditors are less likely to issue GCOs to clients which subsequently file for bankruptcy during high sentiment periods. We conduct additional tests to examine whether auditors' litigation costs indeed vary with sentiment and document that auditors are less likely to be sued and the market reacts less negatively to misstatement announcements when sentiment is high. Collectively, our findings suggest that, although misstatement risk is increasing with sentiment, auditors' litigation risk actually declines.     

Earnings Announcements and Information Asymmetry: An Intra‐Day Analysis*

This paper examines the effect of earnings announcements on information asymmetry as perceived by specialists. We use changes in quoted bid‐ask spreads and depths (relative to the average value in the non‐announcement period) as proxies for changes in information asymmetry in the market. To our knowledge, we are the first to employ a model that captures the simultaneous nature of the specialists' choice of spreads and depths in reaction to earnings news. We provide evidence that spreads are wider and depths are smaller before the release of earnings announcements. We also find that changes to depths are greater for announcements of quarterly earnings than for announcements of annual earnings and changes to spreads persist longer into the post‐announcement period when announcements are made outside trading hours. These changes to spreads and depths persist when earnings announcements are made after trading hours.     

福建上市公司盈余质量评价研究

上市公司盈余质量问题是当前会计理论界与实务界共同关注的焦点,一直受到广大投资者、债权人、政府部门等利益相关者的高度关注。盈余信息作为会计信息的核心组成部分,也就显得更加重要。因此,盈余质量分析对引导投资者合理利用财务信息进行投资决策,引导资本合理流动与资源配置,提高公众投资者对会计行业的信心有重要的现实意义。本文从盈余质量的一般定义,选择了影响会计盈余质量因素中的五个重要指标——盈余的真实性、持续性、盈利性、成长性及安全性指标,构建了我国上市公司盈余质量评价体系,运用因子分析法对福建上市公司2005—2007年的盈余质量状况进行了分析评价。     

External Corporate Governance and Misreporting

This study investigates how external corporate governance provisions, specifically statutory and corporate charter provisions that limit direct shareholder participation in the governance process, affect the likelihood of an accounting restatement. The analysis indicates that strong external governance (fewer restrictions on shareholder participation) is associated with a relatively low incidence of accounting restatements. The effect of external governance is incremental to that of internal governance, which is considered as provisions that foster effective board oversight of management. Such evidence supports the premise that shareholder participation improves financial reporting quality.     

亏损属性、会计盈余与股票价格

文章将亏损上市公司按照亏损属性不同分为了四种类型,对每类亏损公司的会计盈余与股票价格的关系进行了深入分析,认为:(1)对于单赤字、虚双赤两类亏损公司,其会计盈余的价值相关性较为微弱,而且其股价变动更多地是与公司发生的各种"表外事件"相关;(2)对于实双赤公司和三赤字公司,由于其已经出现资不抵债的情形,投资者很可能执行清算期权,因而亏损信息引起其股价急剧下跌,而且三赤字公司股价下跌的幅度比实双赤公司下跌的幅度更大.     

Are Related Party Transactions Red Flags?

This study investigates whether or not related party transactions serve as “red flags” that warn of potential financial misstatement. We hand‐collect related party transactions for S&P 1500 firms in 2001, 2004, and 2007 and find a positive correlation between these transactions and future restatements, suggesting restatements are more likely when a firm engages in related party transactions. The association is concentrated among transactions that appear to reflect “tone at the top” rather than arguably more necessary business transactions. We also find RPT firms pay lower audit fees. However, “tone RPT” firms that subsequently restate pay higher audit fees, providing evidence that auditors recognize the individual restatement risks of these firms. Our results suggest that tone‐based RPTs serve as signals of higher risk of material misstatement.     

会计信息与股票价格相关性的实证分析——以汽车行业为例

会计系统提供的会计信息是股票市场信息的主要来源。分析上市公司会计信息对股票市价的影响对完善我国证券市场有较强的现实意义。本文以近来发展较快的汽车行业为例．对2010年25家上市汽车公司的相关财务指标数据以及股票市价进行实证研究。研究结果表明每股收益与流动比率可以解释五个财务指标提供的超过70鬈以上的信息，其中每股收益对汽车行业的股票价格的氍响最大，与股票价格成线性正相关，流动比率与股票价格线性相关不显著。     

Accounting Restatements and External Financing Choices*

There is little research on how accounting information quality affects a firm’s external financing choices. In this paper, we use the occurrence of accounting restatements as a proxy for the reduced credibility of accounting information and investigate how restatements affect a firm’s external financing choices. We find that for firms that obtain external financing after restatements, they rely more on debt financing, especially private debt financing, and less on equity financing. The increase in debt financing is more pronounced for firms with more severe information problems and less pronounced for firms with prompt CEO or CFO turnover and auditor dismissal. Our evidence indicates that accounting information quality affects capital providers’ resource allocation and that debt holders help alleviate information problems after accounting restatements.     

When Are Audit Firms Sued for Financial Reporting Failures and What Are the Lawsuit Outcomes?

We examine how often audit firms are sued in a large sample of accounting lawsuits that allege financial reporting failures. We find an insignificant relation between the likelihood of auditor litigation and restatements, but the likelihood of auditor litigation is strongly related to the types of alleged accounting deficiencies. We also find that the auditor's type influences the probability of the auditor being sued and the size of the payouts from auditor and nonauditor defendants. In particular, the Big N firms are approximately 7 percent less likely than non–Big N firms to be named as co-defendants, and the auditor's contribution to the plaintiff's payout is significantly larger when a Big N firm is sued. Overall, our findings suggest that auditors are rarely blamed when there are allegations of financial reporting failures, but the types of accounting deficiencies and the auditor's type significantly influence the probability of the audit firm being sued and the outcomes of the lawsuits.     

Implications of the Joint Provision of CSR Assurance and Financial Audit for Auditors' Assessment of Going-Concern Risk

We examine whether the joint provision of corporate social responsibility (CSR) assurance services and financial audit by the same audit firm influences auditors' assessment of going-concern risk. We predict that the provision of CSR assurance and financial audit by the same audit firm creates CSR-related knowledge spillovers from the CSR assurance team to the financial audit engagement team, which helps in the auditor's assessment of going-concern risk. Using more than 28,000 firm-year observations from 55 countries, we document that, relative to audit firms that provide only the financial audit, audit firms that provide both CSR assurance and financial audit for the same client (i) issue more frequent going-concern opinions and have lower Type II going-concern errors, (ii) have clients that book larger environmental and litigation provisions, (iii) report earnings that are more persistent and value-relevant and are less likely to book income-decreasing earnings restatements, and (iv) do not charge higher audit fees or total fees. Our results are important especially because of firms' increasing exposure to CSR risks and the growing number of countries that require assurance of CSR reports.