Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance最新文献

One of the most difficult challenges facing contemporary auditors is evaluating the reasonableness of fair value estimates (FVEs) made by management. Both practitioners and academic studies have shown auditors to be deficient when tasked with assessing FVEs. However, it is not well understood whether the root cause of this deficiency lies in auditors’ lack of knowledge to appropriately evaluate estimates or auditors’ lack of willingness to challenge management. Using the setting of common auditors in M&A transactions, this study empirically examines whether the audit deficiency can be resolved by providing auditors with additional knowledge or willingness. Our results show that common auditors significantly outperform their peers when tasked with assessing the reasonableness of FVEs in purchase price allocations and reducing overallocation to goodwill when managers have incentives to do so. Further, the evidence is consistent with common auditors demonstrating improved performance in challenging information environments, but not in scenarios where risks to auditors may be perceived to be higher. The results suggest that it is their greater asset-specific knowledge that drives mitigation of the audit deficiency and that targeting improvements to knowledge rather than willingness is likely to be more effective in improving auditors’ ability to evaluate FVEs.

This study examines non-GAAP disclosures in two selected industries, the consumer nondurable goods industry and the business services industry, to address the question of whether non-GAAP measures are applied and interpreted uniformly across industries, and more importantly, if the market reacts to non-GAAP disclosures similarly across different industries. Industry membership potentially has an impact on the usage and interpretation of non-GAAP disclosures; some industries issue their own policy trying to standardize the use of non-GAAP measures in their industry. However, industry effects on non-GAAP disclosures have not been thoroughly studied. This study fills in the gap. Using hand-collected non-GAAP measures disclosed in the 8-K reports from 308 firms in the selected two industries, this study finds that: (1) the use of non-GAAP measures is more popular than reported in previous studies, and non-GAAP measures are not limited to performance measures; (2) there is weak evidence of industry preference as to which non-GAAP measures are more popular in that industry; and (3) the market reacts differently to non-GAAP disclosures in different industries. Combining the empirical findings, this study documents industry effects and market reactions in the interpretation of non-GAAP disclosures. Considering that these effects have not been formally academically documented in previous studies, this study carries practical implications for investors and financial analysts.

This study examines the effect of real earnings management (REM) on earnings persistence and informativeness and also considered in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. REM is quantified by two aggregate metrics. The sample consists of 2256 firm-year observations of listed companies in Vietnam from 2016 to 2021. We find evidence that REM is negatively associated with the persistence of earnings and its components, with REM affecting cash flows more strongly than accruals. We also find that REM limits the relationship between current earnings and future cash flows. Furthermore, when confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of REM on earnings quality does not improve.

This paper investigates the causal relationships and volatility spillovers between the BSE Bankex index and the stock prices of five major Indian banks (Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank, and SBI). Daily data from January 2, 2018 to March 8, 2023 are used, and statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics, Unit Root test, Cointegration test, Ganger Causality test, OLS regression, and GARCH model are employed. The study finds bidirectional causal relationships between the bank stocks and BSE Bankex returns, suggesting that the movement of the bank stocks significantly affects the overall market returns and vice versa. The study also finds significant volatility spillovers between the bank stocks and BSE Bankex returns, implying that the shocks in the bank stocks affect the market returns and vice versa. The study's outcomes have practical implications for investors and policymakers. Investors can use the results to make informed investment decisions in the Indian stock market, while policymakers can use the findings to monitor the financial stability of the banking sector and design appropriate policy interventions to address any potential financial crises. Overall, the study's findings suggest that policymakers should proactively monitor and manage market risks to safeguard overall financial stability.

This paper examines the impact of the repatriation tax provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) on firms’ dividend policy. Our findings show that the firms most affected by the repatriation tax provision, that is, those with high foreign sales, reward shareholders by substantially increasing dividends per share, but maintain aggregate dollar dividends. Dividend per share (DPS) increasing firms repurchase at significantly higher magnitudes than non-dividend per share increasing firms, suggesting that DPS increasing firms partially utilize repurchases to avoid substantial increases in their long-term aggregate dividend commitments. We also investigate whether managers reap the rewards of dividend increases, finding that firms with high levels of executive ownership and foreign sales are more likely to increase their dividends per share after the TCJA was enforced. Overall, our results highlight the importance of the interconnection between dividends and repurchases in examining the response of firm payout policy to external shocks.

The previous literature on capital structure has produced plenty of potential determinants of leverage over the last decades. However, their research models usually cover only a restricted number of explanatory variables, and many suffer from omitted variable bias. This study contributes to the literature by advocating a sound approach to selecting the control variables for empirical capital structure studies. We applied linear LASSO inference approaches to evaluate the marginal contributions of three proposed determinants; cash holdings, non-debt tax shield, and current ratio. While some studies did not use these variables in their models, others obtained contradictory results. Our findings have revealed that cash holdings, current ratio, and non-debt tax shield are crucial factors that substantially affect the leverage decisions of firms and should be controlled in empirical capital structure studies.

The deterrent effect of geographic distance on international expansion has been extensively examined in extant literature; however, little is known about whether tax-related firm-level characteristics could moderate the deterrent effect although both merger and acquisition (M&A) location decisions and tax-related decisions involve considerable managerial judgments. Results using data on Japanese firms’ outbound M&A from 2010 to 2020 after Japan shifted from a worldwide tax system to a territorial tax system show that the deterrent effect of geographic distance is moderated by high tax avoidance, use of a tax consolidation regime, and a high level of deferred tax asset (DTA) balance. Additionally, we find that the 2017 Tax Reform on Japanese controlled foreign company (CFC) rules reduced the moderating effect of use of a consolidation regime, whereas it enhanced the moderating effect of a high level of DTA balance. These results call for a radical change in further research on various distances to incorporate insight from a tax perspective.

We examine the relationship between corporate teamwork culture and firms’ voluntary disclosure, specifically management earnings forecast quality. A new measure of corporate teamwork culture is used, which was calculated using a machine learning approach to analyze earnings call transcripts through a novel word embedding model. We find that firms with stronger corporate teamwork culture are more likely to issue earnings forecasts and file 8-K forms. Further analysis reveals that the corporate teamwork culture score is positively associated with the quality of management earnings forecast. It implies that firms with a stronger teamwork culture issue more accurate earnings forecasts as human harmony cooperation and strong employee responsibility help reduce errors in earnings forecasts. Our new empirical results contribute to the voluntary disclosure and corporate culture literature.

This paper investigates the effects of board cultural diversity, audit committee experience diversity as well as business ethics on the effectiveness of oversight quality on ESG performance. Using Generalized Moments of Methods (GMM), we examine the ESG performance of the firms listed in the Hong Kong Hang Seng Composite Index between 2010 and 2015. We find that board cultural diversity and business ethics have positive correlations with ESG performance while audit committee experience diversity has a negative correlation with ESG performance. In our additional analysis, we observe that board cultural diversity is critical for improving social performance and business ethics is essential for improving environmental and social performance. However, audit committee experience diversity limits firm performance in three areas (environmental, social, and governance) of ESG performance. This is the first study that provides insights to both policymakers and practitioners by highlighting the importance of optimizing the levels of diversity and mandating the improvement of business ethics.

This study was aims to examine the significant elements of the audit and board committee in predicting earnings management (EM) for the period of 2010–2021. The study population comprised total number of 775 listed firms on Bursa Malaysia's main market. The annual audited financial statements and reports of the listed firms, firm's websites, Bloomberg and the Bursa Malaysia website were used as method of data collection. The analytical method used in the current study was descriptive statistic and GLS methods of panel regression. The findings of this study suggested that firms with effective CG mechanisms such as, audit committee size (AUDSIZ), audit committee financial expertise (AUDFEXPT), remuneration and nomination committee (R&NC), supervisory board size (SBS), mitigates accrual, and REM. However, the findings also indicated that gender composition (CGEND) were found to be ineffective in predicting EM.