Value Relevance of Environmental Provisions Pre‐ and Post‐IFRS

The purpose of this paper is to compare the value relevance of environmental provisions as recorded under Canadian/U.S. GAAP and IFRS accounting frameworks with consideration of the impact of voluntarily issuing stand‐alone sustainability reports. The value relevance of environmental provisions is tested using a modified Ohlson (1995) model. We exploit IFRS reconciliations as a quasi‐experimental setting to conduct this comparison. Results indicate that environmental provisions recorded under either framework only act as liabilities for oil and gas firms that release stand‐alone sustainability reports. For other firms in the oil and gas industry, and the mining industry, the liability nature of these provisions appears to be discounted by the market. Furthermore, for firms in the oil and gas industry that do not have stand‐alone CSR reports, provisions appear to be interpreted by the market as a costly signal about future growth. Instead of downwardly affecting market values, this information is associated with higher market values. In terms of the transition to IFRS, we find that, while the IFRS provisions are significantly higher than under former GAAP, they do not improve value relevance for investors. Accounting standard setters should consider examining the changes in the current standards from the original Canadian environmental provision reporting requirements under Capital Assets section 3060.39, as it was rightfully shown to be a relevant proxy for unbooked liabilities (Li and McConomy, 1999; Bewley, 2005) rather than earnings expectancy. The study builds upon prior research to examine the value of accounting standards that have gone through significant changes.     

The Impact of Better‐than‐Average Bias and Relative Performance Pay on Performance Outcome Satisfaction

Drawing on equity and expectancy theories, we hypothesize that the perception of accountants about their ability to contribute relative to a peer (operationalized as the better‐than‐average [BTA] bias) negatively influences their satisfaction with the outcomes of the performance evaluation process (operationalized as performance outcome satisfaction [POS]). We hypothesize further that this negative influence is mitigated by the amount of relative performance pay. We test these hypotheses using data collected from a survey of and an experiment involving 164 entry‐level accountants. We found that in general our participants rated themselves better than the average audit professional and their immediate work associate; that is, they displayed a BTA bias. Moreover, we found that both the BTA bias and performance pay individually influenced POS; we also found a moderately significant interaction effect. In their entirety, the results indicate that the greater an entry‐level accountant believes that she or he is better than average the more likely her or his performance outcome satisfaction will fall.     

Information Asymmetry and Voluntary SFAS 157 Fair Value Disclosures by Bank Holding Companies During the 2007 Financial Crisis

We hand‐collect SFAS 157 voluntary fair value disclosures of 18 bank holding companies. The SEC's Division of Corporate Finance likely targeted these entities in 2008 through their “Dear CFO” letters in which they requested specific, additional disclosure items. We collect disclosures that match the SEC recommendations and create eight common factor disclosure variables to examine the effect of such disclosures on information asymmetry. We find that disclosure variables about the use of broker quotes or prices from pricing services and the use of market indices and illiquidity adjustments are related to lower information asymmetry. However, disclosure variables about valuation techniques and asset‐backed securities are related to greater information asymmetry. We also document that disclosure complexity, and disclosure tone (uncertainty and litigious) is related to greater information asymmetry. These findings are consistent with criticism that corporate disclosures are voluminous; management may obfuscate unfavorable information which in turn increases market participants’ assessment of uncertainty associated with the fair value measures. We caveat that the setting of the financial crisis and a small sample size may limit the ability to generalize these inferences to other time periods or other financial firms.     

The Credibility of Earnings Forecasts in IPO Prospectuses and Underpricing

This paper provides empirical evidence of the impact of the voluntary disclosure of management earnings forecasts in IPO prospectuses and of the credibility of these forecasts, as perceived by investors at the time of the IPO. We measure forecast credibility ex ante with two approaches: (i) a vector of determinants of credibility that are observable by market participants at the time of the issue and (ii) the predicted value of the forecast error based on some of these determinants. Controlling for the firm's decision on whether or not to issue a forecast, we find that the issue of a forecast reduces underpricing. We find that the quality of the firm's governance and of the auditor and underwriter associated with the issue seems to act as a substitute to the disclosure of an earnings forecast in the prospectus, so that they significantly decrease the level of underpricing only for non‐forecasters. However, despite our various approaches to measure ex ante credibility, we find no association between the pricing of the issue and perceived forecast credibility at the time of the IPO.     

Audit Committee Financial Expertise,Litigation Risk,and Auditor‐Provided Tax Services*

The Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX) greatly expanded audit committees' oversight responsibilities by requiring that they preapprove all non‐prohibited non‐audit services (NAS). Using data from 2003 to 2011, we find that tax NAS are significantly lower when accounting financial experts (ACT‐FEs) serve on the audit committee, suggesting that ACT‐FEs consider auditor independence risk, perceived and/or real, more than other members, including supervisory experts, to the point of not accepting any tax NAS, not even compliance. However, in firms with higher ex ante litigation risk, ACT‐FEs approve relatively more tax NAS than other members, suggesting that they accept the costs of a perceived lack of auditor independence from tax NAS in return for the potential benefits of increased financial reporting quality arising from tax NAS. Our analysis by subperiod (2003–2006 vs. 2007–2011) shows that this result is significant only in the second period. ACT‐FEs' differential evaluation of the trade‐off between the benefits and costs of joint audit and tax NAS provision between the two periods suggests the need for additional research in later post‐SOX years.