Transparency,idiosyncratic risk,and convertible bonds

We first investigate the relationship among a company's information transparency, idiosyncratic risk, and return of its convertible bonds. The effects of a company's idiosyncratic risk on its equity's value volatility and its credit risk are also examined. The findings indicate that when a company discloses a significant amount of information, it is likely to have a higher idiosyncratic risk and a lower credit risk, with no impact on returns on convertible bonds. The volatility of stock returns is positively related to returns on convertible bonds, and it is found that diversified strategies and returns on a company's equity help to improve its credit rating and that a better credit rating triggers an increase in returns on convertible bonds and idiosyncratic risk, indicating that evaluations of the value of convertible bonds must take pure bonds and equity (option) values into account. After excluding conversion values and estimating the idiosyncratic risk on daily, weekly, and monthly bases, this study suggests that there is a positive relation between returns on convertible bonds and information transparency when estimating idiosyncratic risk on a monthly basis and that a positive association also exists between credit rating, idiosyncratic risk, and returns on bonds.     

International timber markets and tropical deforestation: the evidence from prices

Some scholars suggest that global timber markets, especially those involving high value species, are a leading cause of tropical deforestation. Despite limited empirical evidence, this hypothesis rests on the assumption that global timber markets respond to a common equilibrating mechanism that provides strong enough incentives for loggers in the tropical regions of the world. This article develops a simple model and taps into a unique data set on timber prices of hardwood and softwood in leading markets to test the global timber markets hypothesis. While we find evidence of a global equilibrating mechanism with potentially significant economic incentives to affect tropical deforestation, our results do not endorse the common conjecture in the literature that timber price shocks in developed countries lead to a homogeneous response in terms of deforestation everywhere in the tropical world. Instead, they invite further development of structural global timber market models to assess the linkages between markets and the consequences of such linkages to deforestation.     

刍议WTO框架下我国涉外税收优惠法律制度的完善

WTO所倡导的贸易自由化、非歧视、公平贸易等原则对我国尚不完善的市场经济造成冲击,从而促进经济、法律等社会各方面进行调整。有鉴于此,2008年1月1日施行的《中华人民共和国企业所得税法》对内外资企业的纳税规定有了相当程度的调整,如贯彻国民待遇原则,消除身份差别立法;规范涉外税收优惠法律和政策,提高透明度等,以适应WTO原则和国际惯例的要求。     

Improving Financial Reports by Revealing the Accuracy of Prior Estimates*

Several researchers (e.g., Lundholm 1999; Ryan 1997; Petroni, Ryan, and Wahlen 2000) have proposed a reporting mechanism to enhance the reliability of estimates and other forward‐looking information in financial reports. Their proposals require companies to report reconciliations of prior‐year estimates to actual realizations as supplemental information in their financial reports. Such disclosures would enable investors to distinguish between accurate and opportunistic reporting behavior, and, arguably, should create incentives for companies to estimate accurately in the first place. Our study provides evidence on these proposals. Specifically, we conduct two experiments within the context of an important intangible asset requiring estimation ‐ software development costs. Our results show that the proposed reporting mechanism is effective in communicating information about the accuracy of financial estimates. We find, however, that not all disclosures are equally useful. The most effective disclosures explicitly describe the implications of misestimation (if any) on both the balance sheet and on earnings, thereby reducing the computational complexity associated with less explicit disclosures. Furthermore, our results show that when the disclosures explicitly describe the implications of misestimation, investors reward accurate estimators but do not explicitly punish those who are inaccurate. We conclude that information about previous estimate accuracy is useful to investors and that regulators should consider the type of disclosure, because not all disclosures may be equally effective in creating management incentives for accurate estimation. Moreover, the competitive advantage conferred on firms that provide accurate estimates arguably should create incentives for all companies to estimate accurately in the future.     

Notional defined contribution pension schemes: why does only Sweden distribute the survivor dividend?

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of the survivor dividend in notional defined contribution (NDC) pension schemes. At present, this feature can only be found in the Swedish defined contribution scheme. We develop a model that endorses the idea that the survivor dividend has a strong basis for enabling the NDC scheme to achieve financial equilibrium and that not including the dividend is a non-transparent way of compensating for increases in longevity and/or legacy costs from old pension systems. We also find that the average effect of the dividend remains unchanged for any constant annual rate of population growth, that contributors who reach retirement age always get a higher return than the scheme does, and that population growth enables cohorts with more years of contributions to benefit to a greater extent from the dividend effect.     

环境不确定性、财务报告透明度和股价暴跌风险

选取2008年至2013年A股上市公司数据,从市场信息的角度,通过考察公司微观环境不确定性如何影响公司的披露策略及两者的交互作用对股价暴跌风险的影响,探索微观环境不确定性与信息环境之间的互动关系。研究结果表明,环境不确定性与公司股价暴跌风险显著正相关,财务报告透明度对环境不确定性与股价暴跌风险之间的关系具有调节作用,高财务报告透明度可以降低环境不确定性对股价暴跌风险的影响。进一步研究发现,随着环境不确定性的增加,公司财务报告透明度呈现先降后升的趋势。     

Real Earnings Management in Sales

We surveyed 1,638 sales executives across 40 countries regarding their companies’ likelihood of asking sales to perform real earnings management (REM) actions when earnings pressure exists. Using this information, which we refer to as companies’ REM propensities, we study how company characteristics and environmental conditions relate to the responses received. The use of cash‐flow incentives for sales personnel and the distribution of interfunctional power in favor of finance rather than sales are both associated with companies’ REM propensities. In addition, we show that sales executives preemptively change their behaviors in anticipation of top management's REM requests. Sales executives working for public companies and companies in the United States reported higher levels of REM propensity. The data also support an association between REM propensity and finance–sales conflict. These findings and others are compared and contrasted with existing empirical and survey‐based research on REM throughout the paper.     

The Impact of IFRS Adoption and Corporate Governance Principles on Transparency and Disclosure: The Case of Borsa Istanbul

This article investigates whether mandatory and voluntary regulation and best governance practices enhance disclosure quality in an emerging market where code law tradition, dominant family ownership, and lax rules and implementation make it less likely for disclosure quality effects to be observed. We show that the Transparency & Disclosure (T&D) scores have improved for a sample of Borsa Istanbul (BIST) firms, and the firms that voluntarily adopted IFRS during 2003 and 2004 have significantly higher scores. However, in 2005, the year IFRS became mandatory, the T&D scores for mandatory and voluntary adopters were no longer significantly different. Multivariate analysis shows that the Corporate Governance (CG) principles and voluntary and mandatory adoptions of IFRS have all had significant positive effects on various T&D scores of the sample firms.     

浅析我国证券市场的会计透明度

近几年,国内、国外证券市场上接连不断的财务丑闻引发了对会计透明度的讨论,作为会计信息披露高质量的全面含义——会计透明日益受到人们的关注。从会计透明度的基本涵义入手,指出了证券市场会计透明度的基本内容。最后就如何提高证券市场的会计透明度,从前提、源头和外部三个层次进行了分析。     

信息披露与透明度评价

文章简要回顾了财务信息质量的研究成果,指出当前财务信息披露评价存在的不足。因此,信息披露的内容应拓展。最后,文章评述了几个重要的信息披露评价指标体系。