Author: Robert E. VerrecchiaPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 16
Book Description
Information quality and discretionary disclosure
Author: Robert E. VerrecchiaDiscretionary Disclosure Strategies in Corporate Narratives
Author: Doris M. Merkl-DaviesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 89
Book Description
Prior research assumes that discretionary disclosures either (a) contribute to useful decision making by overcoming information asymmetries between managers and firm outsiders (informational perspective); or (b) constitute opportunistic behavior whereby managers exploit information asymmetries between them and firm outsiders through engaging in biased reporting, i.e. impression management (opportunistic perspective). We consider possible theoretical underpinnings of the two competing positions. We discuss different theories explaining managers' motives to engage in impression management or to provide incremental information. We identify various theories, in particular from behavioral finance and from psychology that explain why investors might be susceptible to managerial impression management. We examine the discretionary disclosure strategies applied by managers in corporate narratives, classifying them into seven categories. This enables a better understanding of the wide range of techniques applied by managers to manage impressions/enhance disclosure quality. We bring together both capital markets and behavioral research on whether discretionary narrative disclosure strategies influence decision making and whether, therefore, they are effective. Finally, we suggest future research opportunities. We propose alternative theories from the accounting, management, and social psychology literature to suggest additional impression management motivations and strategies not previously considered in a financial reporting context. We take different theories and prior research in behavioral finance and psychology to put forward new avenues for studying the effect of discretionary narrative disclosures on users, and to explain why users might be influenced by managerial impression management.
Discretionary Disclosure
Author: Robert E. VerrecchiaPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Investments
Languages : en
Pages : 20
Book Description
Earnings Quality
Author: Jennifer FrancisPublisher: Now Publishers Inc
ISBN: 1601981147
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 97
Book Description
This review lays out a research perspective on earnings quality. We provide an overview of alternative definitions and measures of earnings quality and a discussion of research design choices encountered in earnings quality research. Throughout, we focus on a capital markets setting, as opposed, for example, to a contracting or stewardship setting. Our reason for this choice stems from the view that the capital market uses of accounting information are fundamental, in the sense of providing a basis for other uses, such as stewardship. Because resource allocations are ex ante decisions while contracting/stewardship assessments are ex post evaluations of outcomes, evidence on whether, how and to what degree earnings quality influences capital market resource allocation decisions is fundamental to understanding why and how accounting matters to investors and others, including those charged with stewardship responsibilities. Demonstrating a link between earnings quality and, for example, the costs of equity and debt capital implies a basic economic role in capital allocation decisions for accounting information; this role has only recently been documented in the accounting literature. We focus on how the precision of financial information in capturing one or more underlying valuation-relevant constructs affects the assessment and use of that information by capital market participants. We emphasize that the choice of constructs to be measured is typically contextual. Our main focus is on the precision of earnings, which we view as a summary indicator of the overall quality of financial reporting. Our intent in discussing research that evaluates the capital market effects of earnings quality is both to stimulate further research in this area and to encourage research on related topics, including, for example, the role of earnings quality in contracting and stewardship.
Accruals Quality, Disclosure Costs, and Management Guidance
Author: James MoonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 55
Book Description
Research examining managers' propensity to provide earnings guidance generally focuses on external costs and benefits of such disclosure. Motivated by voluntary disclosure theory, I argue that internal costs of disclosure likely play a significant role in the forecasting decision. Prior research suggests accruals quality (AQ) provides an indication of the quality of managers' earnings-related information, as accruals that are of higher (lower) quality presumably arise from higher (lower) quality information. I contend that innate and discretionary components of AQ have opposite relations with information acquisition costs, an important theoretical determinant of disclosure. Specifically, higher levels of innate AQ suggest managers bear low information acquisition costs, leading to a positive theoretical association with voluntary disclosure. Conversely, higher discretionary AQ indicates greater information acquisition costs, which offsets the benefit of high quality information. Using forecast occurrence, frequency, timeliness, and specificity as proxies for the quality of voluntary disclosures, I find evidence consistent with these predictions. Further, improvements in innate AQ correspond to a higher (lower) likelihood of starting (stopping) a policy of forecasting. Finally, I show that the quality of “low-cost” information (innate AQ) moderates the effects of several previously identified determinants of forecasting, including institutional holdings, abnormal audit fees, product market competition, and litigation risk. Overall, my results are consistent with theory suggesting information acquisition costs play important roles in managers' forecasting decisions.
Informational Uniqueness, Corporate Disclosure and Information Environment
Author: Yuen Kit ChauPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
This dissertation examines how the lack of comparable public peers (“informational uniqueness”) is related to a firm’s disclosure policy and information environment. Having less information spillover from other public firms may present an information deficiency if it is not compensated by other components of the information environment. Using textual similarity in business description among firms to measure the extent of peer presence, I find that informational uniqueness is associated with a higher propensity by firms to provide ongoing bundled guidance. This is consistent with firms attempting to mitigate the information deficiency through strengthening their tacit commitment to continued disclosure by providing more information regularly on predictable schedules. Overall, I find a strong negative relationship between informational uniqueness and the quality of corporate information environment only among firms without regular bundled guidance. My results suggest that, while informational uniqueness can generate significant information deficiency, firms with strong tacit commitment to ongoing disclosure are largely able to compensate for the lack of information spillover from peers. On the flip side, firms surrounded by many peers may be subject to the influence of peer dynamics on their disclosure behavior. While the presence of comparable public peers likely expands investors’ information endowment on the base firm through information spillover on related exposures, discretionary disclosures by peer firms may also signal information arrival. This can raise investors’ inferred probability that non-disclosure is due to strategic information withholding rather than the absence of new information. In relation to this, I show that the bid-ask spread of the base firm slightly increases when its closest peer initiates discretionary disclosures, but subsequently decreases upon disclosure by the base firm. In addition, I find that the number of comparable public peers is strongly positively associated with the frequency of discretionary disclosure. Overall, these results suggest that the presence of peer dynamics can induce firms with more peers to provide discretionary disclosures more frequently.
Acquisition and Discretionary Disclosure of Private Information and its Implications for Firms' Productive Activities
Author: Suil PaePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
The objective of this study is to examine the implications of discretionary disclosure for a firm's production efficiency when acquiring private information is costly. In particular, this paper extends the discretionary disclosure model of Dye [1985] and Jung and Kwon [1988] to a setting in which an entrepreneur provides productive effort and potentially acquires a costly private signal that he may or may not disclose subsequently. Three main results are derived. First, even if the entrepreneur is ex ante best off by not acquiring any private information ex post, he cannot credibly pre-commit to do so. Second, because of the inevitable ex post incentives associated with acquiring and exercising discretion over the disclosure of a private signal, the entrepreneur's ex ante equilibrium effort is distorted away from the first-best level. Finally, it is shown that the entrepreneur's ex ante welfare is maximized when the signal is least informative because there is no efficiency loss in that case.
Discretionary Disclosure
Author: Robert E. VerrecchiaDisclosure Quality and Earnings Management
Author: Jian ZhouPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 34
Book Description
This study examines the relationship between disclosure quality and earnings management. Corporate disclosure and earnings management are both subject to managers' discretion; therefore, managers are likely to consider their interaction when exercising managerial discretion. This study employs a simultaneous equations model to test the hypothesis that disclosure quality and earnings management are negatively related. It uses ratings published by the Association for Investment Management and Research to measure corporate disclosure, and discretionary accruals from the modified Jones model to measure earnings management. Consistent with theoretical predictions, the empirical analysis indicates that there is a statistically significant negative relationship between corporate disclosure and earnings management. Firms that disclose less tend to engage more in earnings management and vice versa. This result holds even after controlling for the effects of potentially confounding variables, and for all three components of corporate disclosure: annual disclosure, quarterly disclosure, and investor relations disclosure. By documenting a consistent negative relationship between corporate disclosure and earnings management, the study provides evidence on how management uses the flexibility afforded it under current minimum disclosure requirements to exercise discretion in reporting earnings. This has implications for the interpretation of and information conveyed by reported accounting earnings. It also provides support for the SEC's approach to attenuating earnings management by requiring more informative corporate disclosure.
Discretionary Disclosure in Financial Reporting
Author: Daniel A. BensPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Disclosure of information
Languages : en
Pages : 54
Book Description