The Value Relevance of Earnings and Nonearnings Information in Regulated and Deregulated Markets: The Case of the Airline Industry

This paper examines the valuation effects of earnings and two nonearnings-based measurements (book values and operating cash flow) on security prices of airline companies under two different market structures: regulated and deregulated. The literature lacks empirical evidence in examining the relative importance of earnings and nonearnings accounting-based measurements in regulated and deregulated markets, especially in the airlines industry. We compare coefficient estimates of regressing stock prices on earnings, book value, and cash flow from operations of airline companies during regulated and deregulated times. A control sample of manufacturing companies is also used for supporting inferences from the airline sample’s findings. In a typical regulated market, using cost recovery plus an adequate rate of return on assets, security prices are highly aligned with nonearnings measurements such as the book value. In the airline industry, regulation took the form of guaranteed routes and subsidies to service rural areas, giving rise to a differential effect of both earnings and nonearnings measurements. Under deregulation, airline firms operate in highly competitive markets with large airline firms enjoying the benefits of economy of scale and service diversification. Thus, the asset capitalization (book value), cash flow, and operational efficiencies (earnings) would be major indicators in the market assessment of the firm’s future profitability and security price. This paper finds that nonearnings measures have higher explanatory power of security prices in regulated times for the airline firms. In deregulated times, although earnings have a stronger relationship with prices, nonearnings measures continued to influence stock price levels, reflecting airline specific economics.

Education and earnings in urban West Africa

Using a series of comparable labor force surveys in urban West Africa, we estimate the private returns to education among representative samples of workers in seven economic capitals (Abidjan, Bamako, Cotonou, Dakar, Lome, Niamey and Ouagadougou). The data allow us to provide a unique cross-country comparison using rigorously the same variables and methodology for each country. We tackle the issues of endogenous sector allocation (public, formal private and informal sectors) and endogeneity of the education variable in the earnings functions. We find that the returns to schooling are most often enhanced once an endogenous education variable is accounted for. This effect holds particularly true in the informal sector. In most West African cities of our sample, the public sector gives more value to education, followed by the formal private sector and then the informal sector. We also shed light on convex returns to education in all the cities and sectors, including in informal activity. More generally, a major contribution of this paper is to provide evidence of significant effects of education on individual earnings in the informal sectors of the West African cities, even at high levels of schooling.     

盈余信息度量、市场反应与投资者框架依赖偏差分析

本文以2 0 0 0年9月到2 0 0 3年1 2月沪市A股3 3 8家上市公司为研究对象,应用实证研究方法,检验以四种不同度量方式表示同一盈余信息所产生的“盈余惯性现象”是否存在差异。结果表明:在三因素模型进行风险调整之前,基于四种盈余信息指标的盈余惯性现象都显著地存在。但经过三因素模型风险调整后,基于“意外盈余率”和“标准化意外盈余率”二个指标的盈余惯性现象消失了;基于“意外盈余”和“标准化意外盈余”二个指标的盈余惯性现象仍然存在,所以买入赢家组合、卖出输家组合仍可获得显著的超常收益。显然,这一研究结果并不支持风险定价学派的观点。笔者认为,根据Tversky和Kahneman( 1 981 )提出的“框架依赖偏差”(FramingDependenceBias)理论,四个盈余信息指标所产生的盈余惯性现象的差异表明我国投资者对盈余信息的反应依赖于信息度量的方式。     

对外投资业务中的盈余管理及其评价浅探

本文分析了在对外投资业务中进行盈余管理的空间,并以具体的上市公司进行分析,最后指出适当的盈余管理能给企业带来好处,但是这种好处只是暂时的,并不能增加公司的实际盈余,改变的只是实际盈余在不同的会计期间的分布。     

关联交易、支持与盈余管理——来自配股上市公司的经验证据

本文以我国的373家配股上市公司为样本,检验了关联购销、支持与盈余管理的关系,发现控股股东在配股前利用关联购销支持公司,调高业绩,因而这种支持很可能属于盈余管理行为。另外还发现,关联购销与可操纵性应计利润、线下项目负相关,且关联购销与线下项目的负相关关系在有配股盈余管理动机的公司更显著。     

高管变更、继任来源与盈余管理

高管变更与盈余管理之间的关系历来是盈余管理领域关注的热点问题之一,但我国对这一问题的经验文献却相对较少。以中国资本市场2001年到2006年的A股上市公司为样本,实证检验了高管(董事长或总经理)变更和高管的继任来源两个因素对于盈余管理的影响。在控制了其他可能影响盈余管理的因素之后,实证研究结果表明:高管变更导致了显著的负向盈余管理行为;外部继任者的上市公司相对于内部继任者的上市公司而言更倾向于进行显著的负向盈余管理。附加检验也揭示,高管离职的原因会给继任高管的盈余管理行为带来不同的影响。研究表明,高管变更和继任来源是盈余管理行为的重要影响因素,为理解中国资本市场盈余管理的机会主义行为动机提供了新的经验证据。     

Do Japanese Analysts Overreact or Underreact to Earnings Announcements?

Several recent studies have used U.S. analysts' forecasts to test for underreaction or overreaction to information in earnings announcements. These tests have provided mixed results. Evidence in Mendenhall (1991) is that analysts underreact. By contrast. results in De Bondt and Thaler (1990) show overreaction by U.S. financial analysts to earnings announcements. The current study contributes to this topic by examining over/underreaction by Japanese financial analysts. Test results show that Japanese analysts do not overreact to earnings announcements, market to book ratios and sales growth. Instead. there is strong evidence that Japanese analysts underreact to earnings announcements and that their underreaction is more pronounced for firms with mostly permanent earnings. Our results also show that Japanese analysts display larger forecast biases for earnings reported under U.S. GAAP as opposed to Japanese GAAP. Finally, we find that US. analysts discount information in earnings announcements to a larger degree (relying to a greater extent on information in past prices instead) when compared to their Japanese counterparts. Further, in contrast to their Japanese counterparts, these analysts display no optimistic bias. The results above suggest that the impact of each country's unique culture and capital norms will have to be taken into account by policy makers in evaluating the feasibility of harmonization of accounting standards.     

Expectations Management and Beatable Targets: How Do Analysts React to Explicit Earnings Guidance?*

This study investigates security analysts' reactions to public management guidance and assesses whether managers successfully guide analysts toward beatable earnings targets. We use a panel data set between 1995 and 2001 to examine the fiscal‐quarter‐specific determinants of management guidance and the timing, extent, and outcomes of analysts' reactions to this guidance. We find that management guidance is more likely when analysts' initial forecasts are optimistic, and, after controlling for the level of this optimism, when analysts' forecast dispersion is low. Analysts quickly react to management guidance and are more likely to issue final meetable or beatable earnings targets when management provides public guidance. Our evidence suggests that public management guidance plays an important role in leading analysts toward achievable earnings targets.     

New insights on earnings trends across skill groups and industries in West Germany

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the structure of earnings in West Germany across skill groups and industries. Our analysis is based on data from the German Socioeconomic Panel for the period 1984 to 1994. We estimate quantile regressions, both for the entire sample period and for each year separately, in order to obtain a finer picture of the earnings structure compared to conventional least squares methods. For robust standard error estimation, this study uses a block bootstrap procedure taking account of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation in the error term. We also suggest a simple procedure to obtain a consistent estimate of inter-industry earnings variability. Our main findings are: first, pooled estimation comprising a uniform time trend is not rejected by the data, and second, the effects of human capital variables and industry dummies on earnings differ considerably across quantiles. First version: May 1998/Final version: April 2002 RID="*" ID="*"  We are grateful to an anonymous referee as well as to Thiess Büttner, Christian Dustmann, Wolfgang Franz, John Haisken-DeNew, Costas Meghir, Werner Smolny, Peter Winker, Volker Zimmermann, and seminar participants in Heidelberg, Kassel, Konstanz, and Paris for helpful comments. However, all errors are our sole responsibility. RID="*" ID="*"  We are grateful to an anonymous referee as well as to Thiess Büttner, Christian Dustmann, Wolfgang Franz, John Haisken-DeNew, Costas Meghir, Werner Smolny, Peter Winker, Volker Zimmermann, and seminar participants in Heidelberg, Kassel, Konstanz, and Paris for helpful comments. However, all errors are our sole responsibility.     

Accounting Earnings Announcements and Differential Predisclosure Information

Recent studies have detected an inverse association between a firm's size and the stock price reaction to the firm's accounting earnings announcements, which has been interpreted as evidence that larger firms have relatively richer information sets. This study expands on this work, using two firm-specific factors to capture both the time and flow-per-period elements of information production (period of listing and firm size respectively) and examines whether these variables are a better information proxy than is size alone. After controlling for firm size, a statistically significant inverse relationship between a firm's period of listing and the information content of its annual earnings announcement is detected. The findings have implications for standard-setters as well as for auditors'assessment of the risk associated with audits of newly listed firms.