Predictive Ability Of Earnings Research Articles

Persistence and Predictive Ability of Earnings: Evidence from France and the UK

Abstract The persistence and predictive ability are extensively requested as desirable attributes of earnings quality in the literature. The paper aims at investigating the persistence and predictive ability of earnings in French and UK companies. The study included a panel data of 1035 firm-year observations for 115 French listed companies from the CAC All-Tradable and 900 firm-year observations for 100 UK listed companies from the FTSE All-Share, during the period of 2011–2019. The research design was based on two equations starting from Sloan (1996) that were estimated using Fixed Effects Method. The study showed that earnings were persistent but they had no predictive ability regarding the future cash flows whether in French or UK companies and that earnings of UK companies were more persistent than those of the French companies. We argue that the persistence of earnings and the inability to predict future cash flows can be evidence of earnings management. The study contributes to the literature about earnings quality by studying earnings persistence and earnings predictive ability together in two different environments. The results require that users must take into consideration the illusory persistence of earnings, auditors must be cautious regarding the manipulation of earnings by managers, and accounting standard setters must review the reporting guidelines of cash flows to enhance their predictability by earnings.

Earnings Quality in a Bubble Period: The Case of Construction Activity Firms in Spain

Housing bubbles may result in deep crises that affect all economic systems. This study investigates how the recent housing bubble in Spain has affected earnings quality during the whole bubble. To this end, we use data on mostly private construction activity firms in Spain, that is, construction and real estate companies. Earnings quality is studied by means of the predictive ability of earnings, conservatism, discretionary accruals and real earnings management. The results indicate a progressive decrease in the quality of financial reporting as the bubble develops, as managers try to conceal an underlying downward trend. We further show that earnings quality continues to decline even after the bubble bursts. Overall, this contribution, together with those of other environments, may suggest that, in a bubble context, we have to take care of firms’ earnings quality even some years before the crisis comes to the fore.

Accruals and the prediction of future operating cash-flows: evidence from Tunisian companies

The purpose of this study is to investigate the ability of earnings and its components to predict future cash flows for Tunisian companies. We provide evidence on the ability of aggregate earnings, accruals and its components to forecast one or two-period ahead cash flows.The results of the models show that disaggregating earnings into cash flows and total accruals enhance the predictive ability of earnings relative to aggregate earnings. Furthermore, consistent with prediction, the disaggregating total ac-cruals into its major components (change in accounts receivable; change in inventory; change in accountant’s payable, amortization, and other accruals) significantly enhances the predictive ability of earnings. Each accruals component’s proves a significantly power to predict future cash flows.

Fair Value Accounting and the Predictive Ability of Earnings: Evidence from the Banking Industry

This paper examines whether fair value adjustments included in other comprehensive income (OCI) can predict future performance in banks. We also examine whether the reliability of these fair value estimates affects their predictive value. Using a sample of bank holding companies, we find that fair value adjustments included in OCI can predict bank earnings both one and two years ahead. However, not all fair value related unrealized gains and losses included in OCI have similar implications for future performance. While unrealized gains and losses on available-for-sale securities are positively associated with future earnings, unrealized gains and losses on derivative contracts classified as cash flow hedges are negatively associated with future earnings. We also find that the predictive value of fair value estimates is enhanced when fair values are measured more reliably. Finally, we show that fair value adjustments recorded in OCI during the 2007-2009 financial crisis were predictive of future profitability, contradicting the criticism that fair value accounting forced banks to record excessive downward adjustments. Overall, our findings support the view of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and International Accounting Standards Board that use of fair value estimates in financial reporting meets their objective of providing decision-useful information about future firm performance.

Changes in the predictive ability of earnings around earnings restatements

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether earnings restatements have a larger effect on the earnings quality (proxied by persistence) of restating firms relative to similar non‐restating firms and if restated earnings are more persistent than the originally reported earnings.Design/methodology/approach – Cross‐sectional earnings persistence models are used to analyze how earnings persistence changes around restatements for both the originally reported earnings and the new restated earnings numbers. The study looks at restatements from 1997 through 2006.Findings – The findings show that restating firms exhibit a larger increase in earnings persistence from the two‐year period before to the two‐year period after the restatements. Results also show that the restated portion of earnings is incrementally persistent relative to the originally reported earnings and the incremental persistence, although mitigated, is still significant after the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act. In addition, t...

The usefulness of earnings versus book value for predicting stock returns and cross corporate ownership in Japan

Using a sample of Japanese firms, this paper evaluates the usefulness of the two fundamental products of an accrual accounting system, namely accrual earnings and book value of equity for predicting stock returns. Our analysis shows that both earnings and book value for Japanese firms have the ability to provide for profitable trading strategies or improved portfolio decisions, and that relative to the trading strategy based on earnings or book value alone, the trading strategy based on a combination of both earnings and book value generates substantially higher returns for all cases. This suggests that book value (or earnings) captures certain aspects of equity values that are not captured by earnings (book value). Our multivariate regression results further indicate that the predictive ability of earnings is dominated by that of book value. Finally, it is found that the predictive ability of book value is sensitive to the degree of cross corporate ownership, while it is insensitive to the degree of real estate holding.

Predictive ability of earnings and dividend yield: an empirical evaluation of New Zealand stocks

A number of recent studies in the USA have shown that in the long term, dividend yields are able to explain the stock returns to some extent. Earnings yield has also been often used by practitioners to forecast stock returns. The present paper examines the predictability of stock returns in the New Zealand stock market utilizing the three-month lagged dividend yield and earnings yield models. The study finds that both the three-month lagged dividend and earnings yield models have indeed some predictive power. Neither the regression nor the t-test used in the study reject the null that the models have some explanatory power.

The Treatment of Non‐Recurring Items in the Income Statement and their Consistency with FASB Concept Statements

This study provides evidence on the consistency of Accounting Principles Board Statement No. 30 (APB, 1973) classification criteria with the objectives of the Financial Accounting Standards Board's Concept Statements Nos 1 and 2 (FASB, 1978, 1980). It is hypothesized that the current APB 30 requirement to classify items of a non‐recurring nature in the operating section of the income statement decreases the predictive ability of income before extraordinary items. A random sample of 50 firms with non‐recurring adjustments to income, which were included in the operating section of the income statement, was selected from Standard and Poor's Corporation Records. Naive models were used to generate earnings per share forecasts for the year in which the adjustment to income occurred, the prior year and subsequent year.The results indicate a statistically significant decrease in the predictive ability of earnings per share before extraordinary items associated with the year that the adjustment occurred and a significant increase in the variability of earnings per share. Also, differences in predictive ability were noted between small and large firms and firms with positive and negative adjustments to income.The results of this study also imply that the managers of most firms with negative adjustments to income are not using the adjustments to smooth income for either the purpose of decreasing the variability of earnings or increasing predictability. The results are more consistent with the ‘big bath’ theory. These conclusions appear to be more relevant for smaller firms than larger firms.