美国会计师事务所合并的一些经验

注册会计师在规划会计师事务所的未来时,总是不停地考虑各种成长机会,一种颇为流行的外延式扩大事务所规模的方式就是合并。合并一旦成功,往往可以延长事务所处于事业发展周期顶峰的时间,吸引到顶尖的人才,并扩大事务所的客户群。从美国注册会计师行业的发展看,目前主要的几大会计师事务所大都是经历过多次的合并而逐步形成的。美国许多学者和实务界人士也纷纷就会计师事务所合并的经验撰写相关文章。笔者综合了部分相关文章和新闻报道,就美国会计师事务所合并的原因以及合并中应当注意的问题做一介绍,供参考。     

生机勃勃的美国社区银行

欢迎光临小镇银行(Small TownBank),本行于1999年由阿拉巴马州的蓝道夫(Randolph)和克利本(Cleburne)两县(county)及周边地区的居民发起成立.银行的本部在Wedowee,在Ranburne、 Roanoke和Heflin设有分支机构.为了方便客户,四个办事处都提供所有的银行服务业务.小镇银行是一个真正的社区银行,我们非常欣喜地看到,我们可以叫出每一个客户的姓名.     

The pricing of U.S. IPOs by seasoned foreign firms

We examine the pricing of U.S. initial public offerings (IPOs) by foreign firms that are already seasoned in their domestic countries. Presumably, these equity offers have less downside risk for investors than typical IPOs since domestic share prices can be used to help establish a preoffer value for the firm's equity. In spite of the presumed diminished downside risk, we find that offers by firms from countries that impose foreign ownership restrictions and capital controls are on average underpriced, experiencing an average first-day return in the United States of 12.7%. This result stems in part from the underwriter's failure to price the issue to fully reflect the postoffer premium that often arises for the U.S. shares. In contrast, offers by firms from countries without ownership restrictions have an average first-day return of 0.0%.     

Corporate social responsibility and earnings management in U.S. banks

Business decision making depends on financial reporting quality. In identifying the drivers of financial reporting quality, proxied by earnings management (EM), prior literature has drawn attention to the association between corporate EM practices and commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Empirical evidence, however, provides inconclusive results regarding the direction of this association. Using simultaneous equations, we examine the bi-directional CSR–EM relationship in U.S. commercial banks. We demonstrate that, although banks that engage in EM practices are also actively involved in CSR, the reverse relationship is not significant. We provide implications for investors, analysts, business participants and regulators.     

The costs and benefits of retirement policies at U.S. audit firms

The mandatory retirement age within U.S. Big 4 audit firms ranges from 55 to 62, which has attracted controversy and legal scrutiny. The potential costs of an earlier retirement age include the loss of established networks, experience, and expertise. However, studies in non-U.S. jurisdictions conclude that partners nearing retirement disengage from their work, which manifests in lower audit quality. Using intensive hand-collected data on the age of 3,148 U.S. audit partners, we provide the first evidence of the costs and benefits of mandatory retirement policies at U.S. audit firms. We find that audit quality does not vary, but that fees are significantly higher for U.S. partners approaching retirement. These findings suggest that U.S. mandatory retirement policies are forcing out experienced revenue earners that are producing audit quality equivalent to younger partners. Additional analysis reveal that partner retirements are mechanisms to promote and grow the client portfolios of younger and female audit partners, and therefore increase partner diversity. Our additional analysis of non-U.S. audit partners leading audits of U.S. listed companies shows that partners approaching retirement are associated with lower audit quality across certain measures. This suggests that the audit quality of older U.S. partners is superior to their non-U.S. counterparts.     

The international financial role of U.S. commercial banks: Past and future

The heyday of overseas banking already has passed for U.S. institutions and, according to this paper, the international financial role played by American banks is likely to be diminished still further in coming years. Recent trends in international lending to various groups of countries are examined as are the available data on the profitability and risk attached to overseas exposures. Looking towards the future, the paper reviews the outlook for profit opportunities, capital adequacy, and country risk concentration and it concludes that these factors probably will impose limits to banking growth that may well curtail, for instance, the recycling role formerly (and successfully) played by U.S.-chartered banks.     

Regularity conditions and scope estimates: The case of large-sized U.S. banks

We consider economies and diseconomies of scope for large U.S. banks by employing ordinary and hybrid translog cost functions. We examine the regularity conditions in output space where scope estimates are calculated and reject all models for which these conditions fail. The translog model always possesses violations. For the hybrid translog, violations occur in every case except one. In this one case, we find economies of scope.     

The Asian exposure of U.S. firms: Operational and risk management strategies

This paper examines the Asian currency exposure of U.S. firms with regard to their international operational and risk management strategies. We find that contemporaneous and lagged changes in real exchange rates have significant impacts on firm value for about 30% of the U.S. firms with Asian operations. The effects of a strong dollar are heterogeneous, with both significantly positive and significantly negative coefficients. The exchange exposure coefficients are then estimated as a function of international operational and risk management variables. A strong dollar has an adverse effect on firm value when the firm has a negative initial exposure position, and is related to exports and local sales activities of the firms. However, asset deployment in Asia raises the exposure in absolute terms regardless of initial exposure condition. Variables for hedging incentives explain exposure in both positive and negative exposure cases. Finally, a disaggregate study by country shows significant intra-regional differences, indicating the different ways in which the U.S. firms used their Asian subsidiaries operationally.     

U.S. industrial policy: inevitable and ineffective

In the realm of political economy, much of the 1980s in the United States was spent debating the pros and cons of industrial policy. According to Kevin P. Phillips, the debate is now over. Regardless of who wins the 1992 presidential election, the United States will have some kind of industrial policy--but not the one it needs. In "U.S. Industrial Policy: Inevitable and Ineffective," Phillips details the economic and political forces that are propelling the U.S. toward industrial policy--and the forces that will keep the policy from being effective.     

美国与墨西哥的审计准则与事务所内部治理

去年底,中注协审计准则与事务所内部治理考察团一行6人,先后拜访了美国加利福尼亚州注册会计师协会洛杉矶分会、美国公众公司会计监督委员会(PCAOB)、美国注册会计师协会和     

Financial restatements by Canadian firms cross-listed and not cross-listed in the U.S.

Canadian financial restatements announced during 1997–2006 lower market quality and signal to market participants that expected future cash flows and their uncertainty are diminished and increased, respectively. Abnormal returns are related to downward revisions in consensus earnings forecasts, and become more negative for U.S. cross-listings, and for revenue recognition and company-initiated restatements. Total residual volatility, its information-based permanent component and the adverse selection spread component increase following such announcements. Relative spreads and a spread-depth market-quality index increase following such announcements and are lower for U.S. cross-listings. Relative spreads (unlike the market-quality index) remain higher post-announcement, and are lower post-Sarbanes-Oxley Act.     

Changes in risk of foreign firms listed in the U.S. following Sarbanes-Oxley

This study investigates the changes in the riskiness of foreign firms listed in the U.S. following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), legislation aimed at calming investor fears. While capital market measures of risk increase on average over a shorter-term period, total and unsystematic risk measures decrease on average over a longer-term period. Finding longer-term decreases in these risk measures is consistent with reductions in investor uncertainty. Further cross-sectional analyses show that foreign firms considered to be less uncertain at the time of SOX passage received the greatest risk reductions in the post-SOX period. Thus, it appears that the less uncertain foreign firms especially benefited from the heightened awareness and investor focus that occurred in conjunction with the passage of SOX.     

An analysis of nontraditional activities at U.S. commercial banks

In recent years, commercial banking in the United States has experienced a decline in its traditional business of financing loans by issuing deposits. Simultaneously, banks have become more involved in nontraditional activities that provide financial services and generate fee income. As a result, real aggregate noninterest income has risen relative to income from traditional activities. This paper examines features common to banks that are heavily engaged in nontraditional areas. The empirical analysis suggests that these banks tend to be larger, have smaller net interest margins, have relatively fewer core deposits, and exhibit less risk. These findings have intuitive appeal and conform to conventional wisdom; while larger banks have fewer core deposits and face more competitive interest rate conditions, resulting in narrow spreads from traditional intermediation, they have more diverse sources of revenue and greater access to financial markets, which reduces risk.     

The impact of country risk ratings on U.S. firms in large cross-border acquisitions

This study investigates the impact of country risk ratings on the wealth gains to large U.S. bidders involved in cross-border acquisitions. The findings indicate that U.S. bidders experience positive wealth gains during the merger announcements, though this is concentrated in transactions involving European targets. There are also differences in wealth gains to bidders with respect to industry classification and location of foreign targets. The country risk factors including economic, political, and financial risk ratings all play a significant role in explaining the wealth gains to bidders. Furthermore, the wealth gains are higher for the firms with acquisitions in developed countries and are significantly related to GNP growth rate.     

The size,concentration and evolution of corporate R&D spending in U.S. firms from 1976 to 2010: Evidence and implications

The use of research and development (R&D) spending as an empirical proxy for managerial discretion, information asymmetry and growth opportunities, is pervasive in empirical corporate finance research. Underlying this is the implicit assumption that firms choose levels of R&D to maximize value, given firm and industry characteristics. An alternative framework views the level of R&D spending as subject to idiosyncratic behavior as managers myopically manipulate R&D expenditures to meet short-term earnings goals. Using aggregate firm and industry level data, we find evidence consistent with the view that R&D is determined by firm and industry characteristics. Time invariant firm and industry fixed effects explain most of the cross-sectional variation in observed R&D spending, while time-varying factors like size, profitability, or market-to-book explain little of the cross-sectional variation. We find that R&D spending continues to grow faster than advertising and capital expenditures. We also find no evidence of managerial myopia as corporate aggregate R&D expenditures are growing faster than aggregate profitability and the number of firms that undertake R&D has increased over the period from 1976 to 2010.     

The performance of foreign owned,minority owned,and holding company owned banks in the U.S.

The regulatory and legal environment shaping the constantly evolving U.S. bank structure is pervasive, making it necessary for regulators to simultaneously consider interrelated aspects of that structure. This paper investigates the simultaneous effects of foreign, minority and holding company ownership upon bank performance with both aggregated and disaggregated models. The aggregated results suggest that foreign owned bank performance is similar to non-attribute banks, but that the performance of minority and holding company owned banks provides some cause for concern. The disaggregated results provide additional insights particularly with respect to U.S. banks owned by foreign banks and black owned banks. Policy implications are discussed.     

A nonparametric approach to measurement of efficiency and technological change: The case of large U.S. commercial banks

The purpose of this paper is to derive the efficiency measures and the rate of technological change for a sample of large U.S. commercial banks by employing a nonparametric technique. This technique is used to construct a multiproduct production frontier relative to which the efficiency measures of the banks in the sample are calculated and the displacement of which over time provides a measure of the rate of technological change. The empirical results indicate that the relevant frontier shifted inward between 1980 and 1985 reflecting a high pace of technological advancement achieved by the banks in the sample. The pace varied significantly across the banks with some banks even regressing over time.     

Sharing information in the credit market: Contract-level evidence from U.S. firms

We investigate the impact of lenders' information sharing on firms' performance in the credit market using rich contract-level data from a U.S. credit bureau. The staggered entry of lenders into the bureau offers a natural experiment to identify the effect of lenders' improved access to information. Consistent with the predictions of 35 and 36 and Pagano and Jappelli (1993), we find that information sharing reduces contract delinquencies and defaults, especially when firms are informationally opaque. The results also reveal that information sharing does not reduce the use of guarantees, that is, it may not loosen lending standards.     

Characteristics of failed U.S. commercial banks: an exploratory study

This study uses survival analysis to determine how early the indications of bank failure can be observed. We find that banks with high loan to asset and high personal loan to assets ratios are more likely to survive. Older banks and banks with high real estate and agricultural loans, loan loss allowance, loan charges off and non‐performing loans to assets ratio are more likely to fail. It is possible to predict survival functions of <50% for failed banks, 3 years or less before failure. Moreover, we find that most of the variables present a behaviour that departs from Benford’s Law.     

Portfolio and financing adjustments for U.S. banks: Some empirical evidence

This paper presents a model of the portfolio and financing adjustments of U.S. banks over the business cycle. At the core of the model is a moral hazard problem between depositors/bank regulators and stockholders. The solution to this problem takes the form of shared management of the bank. Stockholders manage the bank's portfolio and the regulator manages the financing of the portfolio. The model predicts that portfolio adjustments are made to conform to the risk aversion of shareholders and financing adjustments are made to offset changes in portfolio risk. Regression evidence for 1955–2000 fails to reject these predictions.