Search results for "ACCOUNTING"
showing 10 items of 1961 documents
An empirical assessment of the Feltham-Ohlson models considering the sign of abnormal earnings
2006
Abstract This paper provides an empirical assessment of the Feltham-Ohlson models, distinguishing between firms with positive and negative abnormal earnings. Abnormal earnings persistence and conservatism parameters differ for these two groups; this implies different earnings prediction models and valuation functions for both profit-making and loss-making firms. The analysis refers to the period 1991-1999 and uses a sample of Spanish firms quoted on the Madrid S.E. The results suggest that our contextual approach is more useful than the non-contextual one to predict future abnormal earnings and explain current prices. Although the Ohlson (1995) model is accurate in forecasting future abnorm…
Earnings sustainability, economic conditions and the value relevance of accounting information
2013
Summary This study demonstrates that the value relevance of accounting information is influenced by the ability to capitalize investments in valuable resources. We use data from Sweden to show that firms that operate in industries in which accounting conservatism limits this capitalization display lower value relevance as a result of more unsustainable earnings components. However, when controlling for the different properties of sustainable and unsustainable earnings components, the difference vanishes. Moreover, we show that firms operating in industries in which more investments are immediately expensed display systematic temporal variations in the level of value relevance. We contend th…
The Predictive Ability of Financial Information for Future Earnings: A European Perspective
2003
The objective of this paper is to analyse cross-national differences in the predictive ability of financial information (accounting and market data) for future earnings. We adopt a European perspective in our analysis by focusing on four representative European countries (France, Germany, Spain and the UK) in order to assess whether the institutional and accounting differences among them result in inter-country differences in the predictive value of financial information. In particular, we consider that differences in the extent of conservatism, due to country characteristics, such as the legal system (code-law vs common-law), the way companies finance their operations, and the relationship…
Empirical evidence of the effect of European accounting differences on the stock market valuation of earnings and book value
2002
Recently, a new dimension has been added to research in accounting harmonization by studying the effects of accounting practices and regulations on share price and return movements. Although there is an agreement of mutual recognition in the European stock markets of financial statements adapted to the directives, the differences between the European countries are still great. The objective of this study is to investigate the value relevance of alternative accounting measures (earnings and book value) constructed under different accounting systems in Europe. We investigate the differences in accounting practices through the relationship between earnings and book value, and the stock market …
Earnings conservatism: panel data evidence from the European Union and the United States
2006
This paper focuses on earnings conservatism, and provides new evidence based on procedures that account for variability at the firm level, drawing a comparison between the European Union and the United States. A key finding is that the estimated responsiveness of earnings to bad news is substantially higher when unobserved firm-specific effects are modelled. Furthermore, it is shown that accounting has become more conservative not only in the U.S. but also in the EU when taken as a whole, and there is little evidence of marked differences in the asymmetric timeliness of earnings between the two. Indeed, any changes in this property of earnings are likely to be attributable to a common facto…
The value relevance of accounting information during the global financial crisis: evidence from Norway
2013
This study investigates how the recent financial crisis influenced the value relevance of accounting information. The empirical analyses show that the book values of equity explained most of the cross-sectional variation in stock prices during the crisis. Still, the earnings response coefficient increased significantly during the period of the crisis. The analysis suggests a separation between the information content of book values and earnings in a crisis situation. The findings are consistent with book values being highly relevant as a proxy variable for liquidation values in a crisis, whereas earnings, in contrast to the balance sheet, capture information about the future earning capabil…
How fair-value accounting can influence firm hedging
2012
Published version of an article in the journal: Review of Derivatives Research. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11147-012-9084-y The potential influence of accounting regulations on hedging strategies and the use of financial derivatives is a research topic that has attracted little attention in both the finance and the accounting literature. However, recent surveys suggest that company hedging can be substantially influenced by the accounting for financial instruments. In this study, we illustrate not only why but also how the accounting regulations may affect hedging behavior. We find that under mark-to-market accounting, most firms concerned with earnings…
French engineering graduates in corporate R&D: is it worthwhile?
2009
In the early 1990s, several studies pointed out a significant gap in earnings between engineers in private firms working in Research and Development (R&D) and those in other activities. The purpose of this article is to assess, from conventional Mincerian models, to what extent these findings are still valid. The different levels of responsibility and job satisfaction of engineers in both types of activities are also analysed. The results clearly suggest a lower remuneration for engineers working in R&D in comparison to other activities, all things being equal. On the other hand, engineers involved in R&D activities have a greater dissatisfaction about the remuneration they receive, but als…
Strategic Accounting Choice Around Firm-Level Labor Negotiations
2014
Prior literature argues that managers make opportunistic income-decreasing accounting choices to limit the concessions made to trade unions. However, empirical research to date presents mixed evidence, potentially due to a common theoretical approach that views labor bargaining as a one-shot game in nature. Using a sample of U.S. firms that engage in firm-level labor collective agreement negotiations, we study whether managers act strategically to reduce the transfer of wealth to employees, and its consequences over investment efficiency. We expect that the repeated nature of this negotiation leads to cooperation among the parties and limits the incentives for earnings manipulation, partic…
On the Asymmetric Recognition of Good and Bad News in France, Germany and the United Kingdom
2001
We investigate whether accounting systems recognise bad news more promptly in earnings than good news, where news is proxied by changes in share price. The analysis is based on a sample of firm/years drawn from France, Germany, and the UK during 1990 to 1998. These three countries are the originators of three distinct legal traditions. Previous studies have argued that asymmetric recognition, one manifestation of conservative accounting, is sensitive to legal background and history. We find that in all three countries the contemporaneous association between earnings and returns is much stronger for bad news (i.e. when price changes are negative) than for good news, and although the results …