Improve Earnings Quality Research Articles

Voluntary Audit Committees and Financial Reporting: Korean Evidence*

AbstractThis study investigates whether and how a regulatory change in the appointment procedure of audit committees affects firms’ choice of an auditor or a voluntary audit committee. It also investigates whether voluntary audit committees improve earnings quality. We find that relatively larger medium‐sized firms with high ownership concentration establish voluntary audit committees to reinforce the control of major shareholders and that these audit committees do not improve financial reporting. Our result that audit committees do not necessarily improve financial reporting calls for policymakers and capital market participants to devote greater attention to audit committee appointments.

Short-sale refinancing and earnings response coefficient: evidence from China

PurposeAlthough short selling has been legalized in China for nearly 10 years, due to the existence of short-sale constraints, its impact on corporate governance of listed companies remains unclear. This paper aims to examine the impact of short-sale refinancing on earnings quality after the short-selling constraints have been released. The authors further explore whether this impact is subject to the nature of property rights and shareholding structures.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a sample of A-share firms in China for the period 2014–2016. The authors use earnings response coefficients (ERC) as a proxy for earnings quality. To empirically examine this issue, a matching sample is generated by using propensity score matching method (PSM) to reduce sample selection bias.FindingsThis study provides evidence that deregulation of short selling has positive external effect on corporate governance. The results indicate that the potential short-selling opportunities can effectively suppress earnings manipulation and improve earnings quality. However, the impact of short selling on earnings quality varies for companies with different nature of property rights and shareholding structure.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the relationship between short selling and earnings quality in the unique setting of short-sale refinancing. This study provides new evidence on the impact of short selling at the micro level and calls for further deregulation of short selling. In addition, this study contributes to existing studies on short-sale refinancing by examining an emerging market.

Direct and Mediated Associations among Audit Quality, Earnings Quality, and Share Price: The Case of Jordan

Purpose: The current study aims to investigate the relationship between audit quality and the share price in Jordan as a developing market. Moreover, it also uses the role of earnings quality as a mediator factor in the study model. Design/Approach/Methodology: The study sample is comprised of all Jordanian industrial public shareholding companies listed in Amman Stock Exchange during the years 2010 to 2018. Therefore, this study uses a panel data analysis on financial disclosures. Findings: The study concluded that a high audit quality and a high earnings quality separately increase the share price. The earnings quality partially mediates the relationship between audit quality and the share price. It was also found that a high audit quality does not improve earnings quality of the targeted companies. Practical Implication: The findings can be used in efforts to: (i) identify the level of Jordanian market control over audit quality and earnings quality with evidence; (ii) provide more explanations on the importance of audit quality and quality of financial information in the biasness environment; (iii) the results of the this study will be more important for the investors, management, decisions makers, policy makers, and other interested parties; (iv) the findings of the study help the policy makers to adopt good regulations to improve the transparency in reporting the financial information that affects the share price. Originality/Value: The study is an original study and it adds to scholarly debate on effect of audit quality and earnings quality on the share price in Jordan as a developing market. It also uses the role of earnings quality as a mediator factor in the relationship between audit quality and the share price.

Auditor realignment, voluntary SOX 404 adoption, and internal control material weakness remediation: Further evidence from U.S.-listed foreign firms

This study examines whether auditor realignments and voluntary Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Section 404 adoption are associated with the remediation of internal control material weaknesses (ICMWs) in the case of U.S.-listed foreign companies. Furthermore, we investigate whether the results are driven by the home country’s legal systems. Using a sample of 266 U.S.-listed foreign firm-year observations reporting ICMWs, we found that firms engaging new auditors are more likely to remediate their ICMWs effectively in the subsequent year. Furthermore, we found that firms in the voluntary adoption period are less likely to solve internal control problems and that ICMW remediation significantly improved earnings quality. However, our results hold only for firms from common-law countries. This study provides evidence to academics that auditor realignment can serve as a functional change by which U.S.-listed foreign companies can remediate their ICMWs. Furthermore, this paper extends earlier cross-country research and suggests that country institutional differences affect the internal control reporting behavior of auditors and the effect of ICMW remediation on earnings quality.

The role of the audit committee in improving earnings quality: The case of industrial companies in GCC

The role of the audit committee in improving earnings quality: The case of industrial companies in GCC

Accrual mispricing in the era of corporate governance reforms

PurposeThis study is primarily motivated by the increasing concern of the academic, practitioners, regulators and standard setters regarding the quality of earnings and financial reporting. The purpose is to investigate whether the accrual anomaly exists in Australia; whether the occurrence of the accrual anomaly is attributed to the discretionary accruals component stemming from managerial discretion; and the impact of corporate governance reforms on accrual mispricing.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs the Mishkin (1983) rational expectations test to examine whether the earnings expectations embedded in stock prices accurately reflect the differential persistence of earnings components. It also employs the hedge portfolio trading strategy to examine whether taking a long position in firms with low accruals and a short position in firms with high accruals will yield positive abnormal stock returns.FindingsThe results show that investors overestimate the persistence of accruals and underestimate the persistence of cash flows and subsequently, overprice the accruals and underprice the cash flows. The evidence of accrual mispricing is severe for the component of discretionary accruals. Nonetheless, the association between discretionary accruals and abnormal returns are weakened during the corporate governance reforms period.Research limitations/implicationsIt should be cautious to attribute the investors' ability to accurately price accruals and cash flows to the passage of corporate governance reform program. Despite there is control for firm size, book-to-market, PE multiple, growth and leverage, other macro-economic factors such as interest rates, inflation and GDP could potentially have an impact on stock returns.Practical implicationsThe passage of corporate governance reform program has increased the level of financial reporting disclosure and the monitoring of management, which subsequently improved accruals persistence and earnings quality. A direct practical implication is that investors should better understand the information in accruals for future earnings when the corporate disclosure environment is strengthened.Social implicationsThis study provides useful information to regulators, academics and investors interested in market efficiency and accrual mispricing. The results suggest that the reform of corporate governance is associated with more efficient prices. This may be of interest to the regulators who intend to improve earnings quality and financial reporting environment through the regulatory reform.Originality/valueTo test the accrual anomaly in the period of corporate governance reforms is particularly useful to regulators and policy makers. It allows regulators and policy makers to gain insight as whether the change of regulation has been effective – more transparent and timely reporting of financial information are supposed to help the investors to better understand the accruals and thus mitigate the potential for accrual mispricing.

Does Sustainable Corporate Governance Enhance Accounting Practice? Evidence from the Korean Market

As corporate sustainability continues to improve and enhance the principles of good corporate governance, firms are exerting increasing efforts in terms of transparency and public disclosure. Transparency efforts provide information to the general public on the relationship between corporate governance and improved sustainability. The better informed shareholders are about the connection between corporate governance and sustainability, the more apparent the relationship will become over time. Prior studies assume that blockholders engage in active institutional monitoring by intervening directly in firms’ operations. In contrast, we argue that passive institutional monitoring is a more feasible governance mechanism in the Korean market owing to the market’s unique features (i.e., chaebols and pressure sensitivity). In particular, focusing on the blockholdings of the Korean National Pension Service (KNPS), we study the impact of passive monitoring on firms’ earnings quality, represented by earnings persistence, value relevance, and timeliness. The empirical evidence shows that KNPS blockholdings have a positive and significant impact on corporate earnings quality, indicating that passive blockholder monitoring is a more efficient channel for improving earnings quality in South Korea. Our results may be generalized to other emerging markets in which a few entities with concentrated economic power engender pressure-sensitive corporate landscapes for sustainability.

The role of voluntary internal control reporting in earnings quality: Evidence from China

Using discretionary accruals to proxy for earnings quality, this study investigates whether and how the first voluntary internal control reporting in 2007 is associated with earnings quality in China. We find that earnings quality is higher in 2007, yet not in 2006, for public companies issuing a first-time voluntary unqualified internal control report, compared with listed firms not issuing an internal control report. Our findings are consistent with a signalling of performance explanation and inconsistent with a signalling of effectiveness explanation. We also find that earnings quality is lower for public companies issuing an internal control report mentioning a weakness, compared with public companies not issuing an internal control report. Overall, our study suggests that public companies conduct diligent self-assessments when issuing a first-time voluntary unqualified internal control report. Consequently, there is an improvement in earnings quality.

CDS Channels of Influence on Discretionary Accruals

This paper finds that the initiation of trading in credit default swaps (CDS) improves earnings quality by reducing absolute abnormal earnings accruals through specific channels in CDS firms. CDS initiation brought about more private information discovery via financial analysts, cross-market speculators, and hedgers. New results indicate that the channels of reduction in discretionary accruals are through a firm's high accounts payable and low cash holdings related to negative accruals and trade credit exposures. The high discretionary accruals compel the firm to improve cash holdings, cash flows, and working capital when probability of default increases. In the longer run, this leads to higher EPS and improved firm value. Thus the generation of public information via CDS market reduces information asymmetry in the context of the trade credit market and enforces greater discipline in discretionary accounts reporting.

IFRS의 도입은 과연 이익의 품질을 제고하였는가? 발생액과 실물활동 이익조정의 상충관계에 대한 실증조사 및 K-IFRS 제1115호에 대한 제언

IFRS의 도입은 과연 이익의 품질을 제고하였는가? 발생액과 실물활동 이익조정의 상충관계에 대한 실증조사 및 K-IFRS 제1115호에 대한 제언

Female directors and managerial opportunism: Monitoring versus advisory female directors

Going beyond the mere participation of female directors within boardrooms, we investigate which of the two major boards of directors' roles (advisory versus monitoring) is best played by female directors in order to make a difference to shareholders. More specifically, we investigate the impact that advisory and monitoring female directors have on managerial opportunism with a specific focus on earnings management. Using sample of US firms, we find evidence suggesting that female directors holding monitoring roles mitigate managerial opportunism, as measured by discretionary accruals. In contrast to the current argument that advisory directors in general are better able to sustain and improve earnings quality, we find no evidence that suggests that advisory female directors are significantly associated with lower managerial opportunism. Overall, the results remain robust after controlling for potential endogeneity problems, corporate governance, and external auditor quality.

Accounting and Financial Consequences of Increased Disclosure: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Do corporate governance reforms influence firm decision-making in the intended way in countries where the institutional framework is weak? We explore this issue for Russia, which implemented a corporate governance reform in 2002. Contrary perhaps to expectation, we document a significant increase in compliance to transparency and disclosure (T&D) rules over 2003-2007. The immediate effect of the new rules was to improve earnings quality as discretionary accruals fell. Market valuations however did not start improving until 2007 when all treated firms started disclosing quality information. The mechanism for the higher valuations was improved earnings quality and lower cost of capital, though cross-listed firms did not experience this. We find that treated domestic listed firms enjoyed about 10% increase in firm value, even when 100% compliance was not achieved. These findings establish that there is a benefit from increasing the requirements for disclosures, even in a country with weak institutions.

Earnings Quality on the Street

To understand how practitioners operationalize evaluations of earnings quality, we obtain a proprietary dataset of 1,029 reports on aggressive reporting practices over 2003-2015 for 348 unique firms published by a research firm (RF) that sells such data to institutional clients. From these reports, we identify 121 measures of poor earnings quality under four major categories: (i) sales quality; (ii) margin quality; (iii) cash flow quality; and (iv) others. As a first-cut to short-list stocks for detailed fundamental analysis, the RF appears to screen for larger, growing firms with lower barriers to arbitrage. The firms flagged by the RF also have higher M-score, F-score, and total and abnormal accruals. The average two (251) days abnormal return after the stock is first flagged by the RF is -1.30 (-18.5) percent, and such return is incremental to the return attributable to mispricing of accruals. Modified Jones and Dechow-Dichev models of abnormal accruals do not appear to capture RF identified signals well suggesting that such models are too coarse to pick up nuanced fundamental analysis conducted by the RF. In out of sample analyses, we find that the RF signals are associated with future restatements, AAERs, and GAAP-related lawsuits after controlling for other earnings quality indicators. We develop an improved earnings quality indicator (RFSCORE) for firms in the retail, durable manufacturing, and business services sectors using the RF’s signals which are based on granular, context- and industry-specific fundamental analysis. To the Street, our paper suggests that fundamental analysis, beyond just the magnitude of accruals, can predict future stock returns. To academics, our research demonstrates that granular, context-specific analysis of public data can supplement and improve the workhorse models used to identify poor earnings quality.

Company’s Sustainability and Accounting Conservatism: Firms Delisting from KOSDAQ

This paper finds evidence that delisting firms make reported earnings more conservative to avoid litigation risk. Conservatism has been used as one of suitable reporting quality measurements that is separate from discretionary accruals, in that investors can monitor the firm’s contract efficiency or litigation risk by demanding conservatism. We collect a sample that is composed of 6348 listed non-financial companies for the period 2009–2016. Our results are as follows. First, we find that companies ahead of delisting are more conservative than other companies in Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ). Second, companies that are ahead of delisting whose auditor is non-big4 are significantly more conservative. Our results imply that companies that are in the process of delisting are seeking to increase their sustainability and to improve earnings quality, such as conservatism, and that small auditors are more conservative in order to mitigate the higher risk of litigation in comparison with big4 auditors. This study has a role to complement prior studies regarding delisting, and provides that the delisting institutions in KOSDAQ market can improve the efficiency and the reliability of the capital market.

The quality of reported earnings and the monitoring role of the board: Evidence from small and medium companies

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether corporate governance initiatives in South Africa that relate to the monitoring ability of the non-executive directors on the board of small and medium companies have improved earnings quality by adopting conservative accounting practices. The sample construct includes the 2008 – 2011 reporting periods of South African companies listed on the Alternative Exchange (AltX). A reverse regression of earnings on returns was used to examine the market-based attributes of earnings quality, i.e. conservatism and the timeliness of earnings. No evidence was found that the boards of small and medium-sized companies are inclined to adopt conservative accounting practices that will result in the asymmetric timeliness of earnings. There is also no evidence that the quality of reported earnings improved as a result of the monitoring ability of the board with reference to the representation of non-executive directors on the board. The findings can be of interest to investors, managers and regulators as the efficiency of corporate boards and the transparency of financial reporting have implications for all of them.

The effects of industry characteristics on stock price synchronicity around IFRS adoption

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a change in stock price synchronicity after IFRS adoption differs by industry characteristics. IFRS adoption was expected to improve earnings quality and comparability. Industry concentration and homogeneity are utilized as industry characteristics, which are known as determinants to earnings quality and comparability to examine IFRS adoption effect on the synchronicity. Using Korean firms listed from 2006 to 2015, the author found that stock price synchronicity decreases after IFRS adoption. The reduction in synchronicity is larger for firms in a concentrated industry. However, the researcher didn’t find that incremental effect of homogeneity on synchronicity changes around IFRS adoption. These results remain unchanged after several robustness tests. The results imply that earnings quality after IFRS adoption improves, while comparability effect is not evident in the Korean market. The paper has implications that co-movement of stock price decreases after IFRS adoption in that delivering firm-specific information to investors; in addition, the magnitude of impacts of IFRS adoption differs by the industry characteristics. The author extends prior studies about IFRS adoption effect on the capital market by providing that the effects need to be examined after considering the industry characteristics.

Accounting Standards and Earnings Quality — Evidence from Registered ADRs

This paper examines the changes in earnings quality of registered American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) as a result of switching accounting standards. We aim to shed light on the potential impact of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) adoption on US firms. A suboptimal approach to achieve this goal is through examination of US firms’ surrogates such as ADRs. Unlike previous studies, we made a distinction between registered and unregistered ADRs and affirmed that registered ADRs are the closest surrogates with which to conduct our analysis because they are exclusively required to adhere to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s stringent disclosure requirements. When cross-listing their equity on the US exchanges, foreign issuers can file their financial reports with the SEC using IFRS, US GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles), or their domestic GAAP with reconciliation to US GAAP. An improvement in earnings quality is documented when ADRs adopt US GAAP or IFRS versus domestic GAAP. However, when the comparison is made between US GAAP and IFRS, no difference in earnings quality is documented. These results indicate that switching to high-quality accounting standards is likely to improve earnings quality. This improvement is maximized when the difference between reporting standards is high and minimized if otherwise. Our conclusion is that the adoption of IFRS in the US is unlikely to change earnings quality of local issuers. Moreover, we drew a distinction between reconciliation with and adoption of high-quality accountings standards and find that while the former can enhance earnings quality, the latter can further improve it.

Do Passive Investors Demand High Earnings Quality? Evidence from Natural Experiment

In this paper, we examine the effect of passive institutional holdings on firms’ earnings quality by exploiting the variation in passive ownership around Russell 1000/2000 index cutoff. Using three sets of earnings quality proxies (properties of earnings, investor responsiveness to earnings, and external indicators of earnings misstatements), we find that passive ownership improves earnings quality. Furthermore, this effect is more pronounced in firms with low active institutional ownership. Finally, we find firms with higher passive ownership undertake more long-term investments. The last two results provide consistent evidence that passive investors improve earnings quality because they have long-term investment horizon and they only have the option of monitoring (as opposed to threat to exit) for good portfolio performance due to their buy-and-hold strategy.

Earnings Quality and Information Asymmetry: Evidence from Trading Costs

Information asymmetry in financial markets relates to the idea that one party to a transaction has better information than the other. Since financial reporting involves the transmission of value relevant enterprise information, we investigate whether the quality of reported earnings can contribute to differentially informed financial market participants. Higher information asymmetry is costly as it increases the adverse selection risk for market participants and lowers liquidity. For a large sample of NYSE and NASDAQ firms, we show that (i) poor earnings quality is significantly and incrementally associated with higher information asymmetry, (ii) earnings quality disproportionately affects information asymmetry for firms with poor information environments, (iii) both innate and discretionary components of earnings quality increase information asymmetry, and (iv) poor earnings quality exacerbates the information asymmetry around earnings announcements. Our results suggest that the standard setters’ efforts to develop accounting standards that improve earnings quality should contribute to a better information environment for market participants and increase stock liquidity.

Corporate Sustainability Management and Its Market Benefits

An increasing number of firms around the world are applying corporate sustainability management (CSM) to their business operations, and the research interest on the effect of CSM in terms of the capital market benefit has grown rapidly under the different research settings across various countries. This study investigates whether CSM contributes to increasing firm value and improving the market response to earnings disclosure, using Korean firms as the sample. The test results show that firms with CSM reporting outperform the other firms in terms of Tobin’s Q and the market-adjusted stock returns over a year. Further, investors respond more strongly to the earnings announcement events of the CSM firms than the non-CSM firms, which is more likely to be attributed to the enhanced corporate disclosure practice of the CSM firms than an improvement in earnings quality. Our findings indicate that the shareholders of firms with CSM reporting can enjoy relatively higher market valuations and enhanced information content of earnings disclosures. In conclusion, the results show that the CSM activities in pursuit of a harmonious relationship with the various stakeholders bring different forms of market benefits to shareholders as well.