Seeing is believing? Executives' facial trustworthiness,auditor tenure,and audit fees

Psychology and neuroscience studies document that facial trustworthiness perceptions may affect observers' decision-making process. Our study examines whether auditors' perceptions of client executives' facial trustworthiness are associated with their audit fee decisions. We employ a machine-learning-based face-detection algorithm to measure executives' facial trustworthiness. We find that auditors charge 5.6% less audit fee to firms with trustworthy-looking CFOs than to those with untrustworthy-looking CFOs in initial audit engagements. Auditor tenure weakens the negative association between CFOs' facial trustworthiness and audit fee. Further evidence shows that CFO's facial trustworthiness is associated with neither financial reporting quality nor litigation risk.     

CFO gender and financial reporting transparency in banks

We investigate the effect of CFO gender on the timeliness of loan loss provision (LLP) reporting using a large sample of US banks from 2007 to 2016. Our findings show that women CFOs are associated with timelier forward-looking provisioning than men counterparts, suggesting that they follow a more transparent approach to financial reporting policies. Our results hold under different model specifications, including the use of bank and CEO fixed effects. We further address endogeneity concerns by showing that the timeliness of LLP reporting improves significantly for banks experiencing a man-followed-by-woman CFO transition. Overall, our study supports the notion that women CFOs are associated with higher financial reporting transparency and provides further insights into how CFO gender affects risk-aversion and ethics in banks, with wider implications about the importance of women’s representation in the finance-based industry.     

Environmental,social and governance disclosure,integrated reporting,and the accuracy of analyst forecasts

The International Integrated Reporting Council advocates that integrated reporting (IR) should become the worldwide norm for corporate reporting aimed at serving the needs of investors. Nonetheless, only in South Africa has IR been mandated. We study the impact of the reporting regime change in South Africa on analyst forecast accuracy over the period 2008 to 2012, as a way of evaluating users’ perceptions of the usefulness of IR. We theorise that any effects of IR will be greater the greater is the level of disclosures of environmental, social and governance performance. We find results consistent with those who support IR and our theory that the level of environmental, social and governance disclosures is a mediating variable in determining the effectiveness of IR. The results are driven by the levels of environmental disclosure and, to a lesser extent, governance disclosure. Our results provide some support for those who advocate the virtues of integrated reporting.     

Financial reporting for sustainable development: Critical insights into IFRS implementation in the European Union

By adopting a political economy perspective to accounting, this paper provides an overall post-implementation assessment of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption relative to the European Union’s (EU’s) fundamental goal of sustainable development. The paper questions the consistency of the International Accounting Standards Board’s business view with the EU’s and provides some critical insights into the potential long-run effects of IFRS on the European economy and society. Therefore, it raises several doubts about unquestioned accounting standardization at a global level and makes some suggestions for future policymaking and research.     

The consequences of deviating from financial reporting industry norms: Evidence from the disclosure of foreign cash

This study examines how investors respond to firms’ disclosure practices that deviate from the majority of industry peers (i.e., industry norms). The SEC has made repeated calls for the disclosure of foreign cash in order for investors to have more information in determining firms’ liquidity positions. We examine the association between firm value and the non-disclosure of foreign cash in industries where the majority of firms choose to disclose foreign cash. We define partial disclosure as disclosing permanently reinvested earnings (PRE), but withholding the disclosure of foreign cash, and find that when the majority of industry peers disclose foreign cash, investors discount the firm-specific partial disclosure of foreign operations. This finding suggests that investors have similar information demands as the SEC, and that withholding foreign cash results in a valuation discount. We also find that this discount is more pronounced for firms predicted to have higher levels of foreign cash and higher levels of PRE. The discount in firm value is also concentrated among firms with managers who have more career concerns, suggesting that managers shift the cost of partial disclosure to shareholders instead of bearing the personal reputational cost of full disclosure. Our results are robust to multiple matched samples and entropy balancing. While previous literature has considered the valuation implications of foreign cash disclosures, we reveal the consequences of opting to withhold the disclosure of foreign cash. Our findings should be of interest to both managers and policy-setters in forming their disclosure protocols.     

欧盟重大科技项目的经费管理模式及其启示

较为系统地介绍了欧盟在实施科技框架计划过程中重大科技项目的经费管理模式;具体介绍了欧盟对重大科技项目经费资助的原则和形式,可补偿成本及其确定,项目经费的拨付与担保金制度,对项目的财务审计与控制机制。在此基础上得出了对我国重大科技项目管理的几点启示。     

信息披露:近40年国外研究综述

本文对国外近40年来的信息披露的基本理论、分析框架和影响因素的研究进行评述。研究发现,发送者-接收者框架说明了信息披露的基础,但它无法描述信息披露的详细过程;委托代理框架解决了逆向选择与道德风险问题,但它的一系列严格假设损害了激励机制的普适性;利益相关者框架可以解释更多主体的行为,但它很难深入分析利益相关者之间的动态作用;中间层框架突出了中介的信息功能,但它对中间层参与信息披露及其监管过程缺乏解释力。经验证据表明,影响信息披露的因素主要包括企业要素、媒体要素、管制要素、审计要素等,但是它们都没有涉及中间层在信息披露的动态情境下的影响作用。未来的研究需要考虑多个主体在监管、审计、披露和媒体报道过程中的博弈问题以及更多相应的经验证据。     

中国省域低碳消费影响因素的空间模式研究

借鉴C-D函数双对数经验,采用五个解释变量,自建模型并引入空间效应研究中国省域低碳经济问题。得出:省域煤炭消费行为存在空间效应,溢出效应参数估计值最高达到0.1286,并随着距离逐步变小;煤炭消费量与产业结构、人口增长、资源禀赋、收入水平和人口、工业经济增长存在内生的联系,其中产业结构和人口增长是影响能源消费行为的两个最重要的因素,而较高的工业经济增长并不必然伴随较高的煤炭消费量。为此应调整产业结构、加大技术改进等,实现低碳经济。     

人民币汇率、国内总需求与通货膨胀——基于汇率传递理论的实证研究

通货膨胀一直是中国政府直接面对而又必须谨慎处理的经济问题。本文以汇率传递理论为视角,运用自回归分布滞后模型（ARDL）考察了1980-2010年人民币汇率、国内总需求、世界商品价格与通货膨胀之间的长期均衡和短期调整关系。长期看来,人民币升值并未像国际经济学理论描述的那样可以抑制通货膨胀,相反却显著地抬高了国内价格水平;中国通货膨胀的成因具有需求拉上的特点,且不存在明显的世界通货膨胀的输入途径。短期看来,中国通货膨胀的动态调整具有明显的滞后特征,且由短期变动向长期均衡调整的速度较快。     

企业知识差距的审计及弥补研究

在知识经济时代,企业要向知识型转变,必须摸清本企业的知识家底,找出与其它企业的知识差距,并采取合适措施予以弥补。比较分析了两个知识距离概念理论,为审计本企业的知识现状、测量企业的知识差距提供理论上的支撑,在此基础上,构建了两型一体的知识弥补模型,并结合案例总结出弥补知识差距的三大途径:知识学习、知识创新、知识共享。