Analyst following, disclosure quality, and discretionary impairments: Evidence from China

Financial statement preparers’ discretion in fair value measurements is integral to asset impairment accounting. Firms may misuse this discretion to report more or less impairment loss than is warranted by underlying economic circumstances. Using data from a sample of publicly listed firms in China, this study finds that analyst following reduces abnormal impairment loss, the portion of reported impairment loss that cannot be explained by corporate economic circumstances and that this effect is more pronounced for firms with lower information disclosure quality. However, the reducing effects of analyst following and its interaction with disclosure quality are greater for income-decreasing than for income-increasing abnormal impairment loss. Additional analyses support the argument that these differences are attributable to the dominance of accounting’s contracting role over its informational role. Overall, the findings indicate that the influence of analyst following on discretionary impairment accounting decisions is moderated by disclosure quality and by the relative importance of accounting’s contracting and informational roles in an emerging market setting.