Inconsistency in U.S. Accounting Standards: The Treatment of Interest

Consistency is an essential part of financial reporting: it applies both to the continuous use of the same accounting principles by an entity from period to period, and to consistency between various accounting principles used by the same entity. In the development of accounting standards, risks to users of inconsistencies can be reduced by good disclosure requirements, particularly so between various pronouncements. A study examining the treatment of interest found inconsistencies in two-thirds of the relevant U.S. GAAP pronouncements.     

Disclosure Policy,Information Asymmetry,and Liquidity in Equity Markets*

Abstract. This study investigates the relation between disclosure policy and liquidity in equity markets. Disclosure policy influences market liquidity because uninformed investors “price protect” against adverse selection, and this price protection is manifested in market liquidity. Bid-ask spreads, the empirical measure of market liquidity used in this study, are predicted to be inversely related to disclosure policy. In addition, increased trading by informed traders and higher probability of information event occurrence are predicted to both increase spreads and intensify the relation between spreads and disclosure policy. These predictions apply during periods in which no news about the firm is disclosed or pending. The results show that relative bid-ask spreads for firms with disclosure rankings in the bottom third of the empirical distribution are approximately 50 percent higher than spreads for firms with disclosure rankings in the top third of the empirical distribution. Tests that assume endogenous disclosure policy reveal a significant negative relation between disclosure policy and spreads, even after controlling for the effects of return volatility, trading volume, and share price. Tests for cross-sectional variation in spreads and for the sensitivity of spreads to disclosure policy based on informed trade activity and probability of information event occurrence are generally consistent with the predictions, though these results are not statistically significant. The findings of this study are consistent with the notion that a well-regarded disclosure policy reduces information asymmetry and hence increases liquidity in equity markets. Résumé. L'auteur analyse la relation entre la politique d'information et la liquidité des marchés d'actions. La politique d'information influe sur la liquidité du marché, étant donné que les investisseurs non informés se protègent contre les choix préjudiciables en ce qui a trait aux cours, comportement de protection qui se manifeste dans la liquidité du marché. Les écarts entre les cours acheteur et vendeur, la mesure empirique de la liquidité du marché utilisée dans la présente étude, devraient présenter, selon les prévisions, une relation inverse avec la politique d'information. De plus, l'intensification de l'activité des négociateurs informés et la probabilité accrue de l'occurrence d'un événement d'information devraient, selon les prévisions, augmenter tous les deux les écarts et consolider la relation entre les écarts et la politique d'information. Ces prévisions s'appliquent aux cours des périodes dans lesquelles aucune information nouvelle au sujet de l'entreprise n'est publiée ou n'est sur le point de l'être. Les résultats démontrent que les écarts relatifs entre cours acheteur et vendeur des entreprises dont la publication d'information les place dans le tiers inférieur de la distribution empirique sont d'environ 50 pour cent supérieurs aux écarts des entreprises dont la publication d'information les place dans le tiers supérieur de la distribution empirique. Les tests qui supposent une politique d'information endogène révèlent une relation négative significative entre la politique d'information et les écarts, même après avoir contrôlé les conséquences de la volatilité du rendement, le volume des opérations et le cours de l'action. Les tests relatifs à la variation transversale des écarts et de la sensibilité des écarts à la politique d'information, basée sur l'activité de négociation informée et la probabilité d'occurrence d'un événement d'information, sont généralement conformes aux prévisions, bien que les résultats n'en soient pas statistiquement significatifs. Les conclusions de l'étude confirment le principe selon lequel une politique d'information bien pensée réduit l'asymétrie de l'information et, par conséquent, augmente la liquidité des marchés d'actions.     

Do Macroforecasters Herd?

We show that typical tests of whether forecasters herd will falsely indicate herding behavior for a variety of types of behavior and forecasting environments that give rise to disagreement among forecasters. We establish that forecasters will appear to herd if differences between them reflect noise as opposed to private information, or if they arise from informational rigidities. Noise can have a behavioral interpretation and if so will depend on the behavioral model under consideration. An application of the herding tests to U.S. quarterly survey forecasts of inflation and output growth data 1981–2013 does not support herding behavior.     

Back to the Beginning: Persistence and the Cross-Section of Corporate Capital Structure

We find that the majority of variation in leverage ratios is driven by an unobserved time-invariant effect that generates surprisingly stable capital structures: High (low) levered firms tend to remain as such for over two decades. This feature of leverage is largely unexplained by previously identified determinants, is robust to firm exit, and is present prior to the IPO, suggesting that variation in capital structures is primarily determined by factors that remain stable for long periods of time. We then show that these results have important implications for empirical analysis attempting to understand capital structure heterogeneity.     

FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKET BID--ASK SPREADS AND THE MARKET PRICE OF SOCIAL UNREST

Time-series evidence yields estimates of the increase in thespread on the South African rand on days when riots, demonstrations,armed attacks, and related deaths occur in South Africa. Thecross-section evidence demonstrates how spreads vary across36 industrial and developing countries as spot rate volatilityand country risk vary. Both the changes in the spread over timefor particular countries and the changes in the spread acrossthe countries at a particular time appear to be significantlyrelated to countries' risk differences and exchange-rate volatility.     

Public Information Precision and Coordination Failure: An Experiment

More precise public disclosure reduces uncertainty about economic fundamentals, but it can increase uncertainty about other agents' actions, leading to coordination failure. We conducted a laboratory experiment to study the effects of public information precision and strategic complementarity on coordination failure. Information precision is operationalized in terms of “granularity” (level of detail). We found that (1) granular public disclosure, which is disaggregated and precise, increases the likelihood of coordination failure and decreases coordination efficiency when public information is pessimistic about future economic prospects; (2) the deleterious effect of granular disclosure is stronger when strategic complementarity is high; and (3) higher levels of strategic complementarity decrease coordination efficiency. Overall, the observed likelihood of coordination failure is higher and coordination efficiency is lower than predicted by theory. Our findings have implications for the Federal Reserve's decision to publicly disclose detailed stress test results for distressed banks, and the debate on whether the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board should publicly release reports on firm‐specific quality‐control deficiencies of audit firms.     

Order Flow and the Monetary Model of Exchange Rates: Evidence from a Novel Data Set

We propose an exchange rate model that is a hybrid of the conventional specification with monetary fundamentals and the Evans–Lyons microstructure approach. We estimate a model augmented with order flow variables, using a unique data set: almost 100 monthly observations on interdealer order flow on dollar/euro and dollar/yen. The augmented macroeconomic, or “hybrid,” model exhibits greater in‐sample stability and out of sample forecasting improvement vis‐à‐vis the basic macroeconomic and random walk specifications.     

AN APPLICATION OF SEQUENTIAL REGRESSION MULTIPLE IMPUTATION ON PANEL DATA

The relatively new sequential regression multiple imputation (SRMI) method is introduced, with the process of SRMI laid out in detail. The Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development and the follow‐up KwaZulu‐Natal Income Dynamics Study provide the real panel data on which the methods reviewed are applied. The SRMI process is used to create multiple datasets completed with values imputed for data originally missing, and using the error component model estimation procedures and Rubin's rules, inferences on the panel data are made. Conclusions are drawn as to the applicability of the SRMI process to these data and as to the results of the regression analyses completed.