Does Quarterly Earnings Guidance Increase Or Reduce Earnings Management?

Does Quarterly Earnings Guidance Increase Or Reduce Earnings Management? PDF Author: Andrew Alexei Acito
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corporate profits
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
This study adds to the earnings guidance debate by investigating whether quarterly guidance is related to two forms of earnings management: (1) benchmark beating and (2) accounting irregularities. Using a post-Regulation Fair Disclosure sample, I find that firms regularly issuing earnings guidance display a discontinuity around zero in their distribution of management forecast errors and a larger discontinuity in their distribution of analyst forecast errors compared to non-guiding firms. Multivariate tests reveal that guiding firms recognize large abnormal accruals to beat their own guidance, but not to beat analyst forecasts, whereas non-guiding firms do recognize large abnormal accruals to beat analyst forecasts. Overall, guiding firms and non-guiding firms use similar levels of abnormal accruals to beat benchmarks. I also find no statistical relation between quarterly guidance and the likelihood of accounting irregularities. In sum, the evidence shows that while guiding firms and non-guiding firms manage earnings to different benchmarks, they are similar in terms of their aggregate earnings management.

Does Quarterly Earnings Guidance Increase Or Reduce Earnings Management?

Does Quarterly Earnings Guidance Increase Or Reduce Earnings Management? PDF Author: Andrew Alexei Acito
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corporate profits
Languages : en
Pages : 60

Get Book Here

Book Description
This study adds to the earnings guidance debate by investigating whether quarterly guidance is related to two forms of earnings management: (1) benchmark beating and (2) accounting irregularities. Using a post-Regulation Fair Disclosure sample, I find that firms regularly issuing earnings guidance display a discontinuity around zero in their distribution of management forecast errors and a larger discontinuity in their distribution of analyst forecast errors compared to non-guiding firms. Multivariate tests reveal that guiding firms recognize large abnormal accruals to beat their own guidance, but not to beat analyst forecasts, whereas non-guiding firms do recognize large abnormal accruals to beat analyst forecasts. Overall, guiding firms and non-guiding firms use similar levels of abnormal accruals to beat benchmarks. I also find no statistical relation between quarterly guidance and the likelihood of accounting irregularities. In sum, the evidence shows that while guiding firms and non-guiding firms manage earnings to different benchmarks, they are similar in terms of their aggregate earnings management.

Short-Term Earnings Guidance and Accrual-Based Earnings Management

Short-Term Earnings Guidance and Accrual-Based Earnings Management PDF Author: Andrew C. Call
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
Motivated by recent practitioners' concerns that short-term earnings guidance leads to managerial myopia, we investigate the impact of short-term earnings guidance on earnings management. Using a propensity-score matched control sample, we find strong and consistent evidence that the issuance of short-term quarterly earnings guidance is associated with less, rather than more, earnings management. We also find that regular guiders exhibit less earnings management than do less regular guiders. Our findings hold using both abnormal accruals and discretionary revenues to measure earnings management, and after controlling for potential reverse causality concerns. Furthermore, in a setting where managers have particularly strong capital market incentives to manage earnings, we corroborate the above findings by documenting that earnings guidance either has no impact on or actually mitigates earnings management. Overall, our evidence does not support the criticism from practitioners that short-term earnings guidance leads to more earnings management.

To Guide Or Not to Guide? Causes and Consequences of Stopping Quarterly Earnings Guidance

To Guide Or Not to Guide? Causes and Consequences of Stopping Quarterly Earnings Guidance PDF Author: Joel F. Houston
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 51

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Book Description
In recent years, quarterly earnings guidance has been harshly criticized for inducing managerial short-termism and other ills. Managers are, therefore, urged by influential institutions to cease guidance. We examine empirically the causes of such guidance cessation and find that poor operating performance - decreased earnings, missing analyst forecasts, and lower anticipated profitability - is the major reason firms stop quarterly guidance. After guidance cessation, we do not find an appreciable increase in long-term investment once managers free themselves from investors' myopia. Contrary to the claim that firms would provide more alternative, forward-looking disclosures in lieu of the guidance, we find that such disclosures are curtailed. We also find a deterioration in the information environment of guidance stoppers in the form of increased analyst forecast errors and forecast dispersion and a decrease in analyst coverage. Taken together, our evidence indicates that guidance stoppers are primarily troubled firms and stopping guidance does not benefit either the stoppers or their investors.

Quarterly Earnings Management

Quarterly Earnings Management PDF Author: Demetris Christodoulou
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This paper examines the systematic difference between interim and fourth quarters in managerial decisions to engage in accruals and real activities management to meet analysts' quarterly earnings forecasts. Findings reveal that managers engage in income-increasing accounting accruals manipulations during the interim quarters. Managers engage in real activities management during the final quarter, through reductions in R&D and SG&A expenditures, aggressive sales discounts and overproduction of inventory. The managerial intervention with normal levels of R&D has become increasingly common following the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in 2003, and occurs throughout all four quarters. In the post-SOX period, firms also engage in aggressive sales discounts and overproduction before the year-end in order to boost earnings. There is an evident managerial preference in the timing between accruals and real activities management with the former being prevalent during the interim quarters when the discretion to delay expense recognition is allowed as part of integral accounting and the auditors scrutiny is absent, and the later only taking place mostly in the final quarter given the cost of adjusting operations towards meeting short term myopic targets. The business practice of reducing R&D and SG&A spending to gain short-term financial benefits is an unintended outcome that is partially attributed to the US accounting requirements of the direct expensing of firms' internal intangible investments. The myopic investment behaviour poses a barrier to the generation and development of firms' intellectual capital and may have detrimental effects on the long-term economic advances.

Impact of Reporting Frequency on UK Public Companies

Impact of Reporting Frequency on UK Public Companies PDF Author: Robert C. Pozen
Publisher: CFA Institute Research Foundation
ISBN: 194496018X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
Beginning in 2007, UK public companies were required to issue quarterly, rather than semiannual, financial reports. But the UK removed this quarterly reporting requirement in 2014. We studied the effects of these regulatory changes on UK public companies and found that the frequency of financial reports had no material impact on levels of corporate investment. However, mandatory quarterly reporting was associated with an increase in analyst coverage and an improvement in the accuracy of analyst earnings forecasts.

The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers

The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers PDF Author: Baruch Lev
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119191084
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
An innovative new valuation framework with truly useful economic indicators The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers shows how the ubiquitous financial reports have become useless in capital market decisions and lays out an actionable alternative. Based on a comprehensive, large-sample empirical analysis, this book reports financial documents' continuous deterioration in relevance to investors' decisions. An enlightening discussion details the reasons why accounting is losing relevance in today's market, backed by numerous examples with real-world impact. Beyond simply identifying the problem, this report offers a solution—the Value Creation Report—and demonstrates its utility in key industries. New indicators focus on strategy and execution to identify and evaluate a company's true value-creating resources for a more up-to-date approach to critical investment decision-making. While entire industries have come to rely on financial reports for vital information, these documents are flawed and insufficient when it comes to the way investors and lenders work in the current economic climate. This book demonstrates an alternative, giving you a new framework for more informed decision making. Discover a new, comprehensive system of economic indicators Focus on strategic, value-creating resources in company valuation Learn how traditional financial documents are quickly losing their utility Find a path forward with actionable, up-to-date information Major corporate decisions, such as restructuring and M&A, are predicated on financial indicators of profitability and asset/liabilities values. These documents move mountains, so what happens if they're based on faulty indicators that fail to show the true value of the company? The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers shows you the reality and offers a new blueprint for more accurate valuation.

Capital Choices

Capital Choices PDF Author: Michael E. Porter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780071034272
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Guidance, Guidance and Guidance

Guidance, Guidance and Guidance PDF Author: Naqiong Tong
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corporate profits
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
This dissertation proposes and examines three research questions on quarterly earnings guidance on its discontinuity and revival. In particular, it examines the impact of corporate governance on a firm's decision to stop quarterly earnings guidance, the impact of its discontinuity on a firm's investment decisions, and why a firm restarts providing quarterly earnings guidance. Corporate governance is measured by board independence, institutional ownership, types of institutional ownership and CEOs compensation. A firm's long term investments are measured by capital and Research and Development (R & D) expenditure. Theories of firm performance and earnings expectation management are used to explain a firm's decision to restart. Using an industry-year-quarter matched sample of 1610 firms (the STOPPERS and the MAINTAINERS) from 2001 to 2006, this study finds that a firm is more likely to stop quarterly earnings guidance when its board is more independent, institution ownership is lower, the dedicate institution ownership is higher and the level of cash proportion of CEOs compensation is higher. It also finds a firm is more likely to stop when both past and expected future earnings performances are poorer or more difficult to predict or the management is more optimistic or litigation risk is lower. Second, this study finds that the STOPPERS have higher levels of capital expenditure and R & D expenditure in the subsequence years following the stop event (one and two years). The change levels of the STOPPERS are higher than that of the MAINTAINERS. It implies that the quarterly earnings guidance has adverse impact on firm's long term investments. Third, using an industry-year-quarter matched sample of 342 firms (the RESUMERS and the NONRESUMERS) from 2004 to 2008, it finds that a firm is more likely to restart when its earnings and market return improve, or when the prevailing market expectations are higher to beat/meet. In addition, it finds that the R & D expenditure of the RESUMERS are higher than that of the NONRESUMERS in the three years before the restart event, which implies that the RESUMERS increase R & D and capital expenditure after the stoppage, and improve the firm performance.

Earnings Management

Earnings Management PDF Author: Joshua Ronen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387257713
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
This book is a study of earnings management, aimed at scholars and professionals in accounting, finance, economics, and law. The authors address research questions including: Why are earnings so important that firms feel compelled to manipulate them? What set of circumstances will induce earnings management? How will the interaction among management, boards of directors, investors, employees, suppliers, customers and regulators affect earnings management? How to design empirical research addressing earnings management? What are the limitations and strengths of current empirical models?

Short-Term Earnings Guidance and Earnings Management

Short-Term Earnings Guidance and Earnings Management PDF Author: Andrew C. Call
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
We study the relation between short-term earnings guidance and earnings management. We find that firms issuing short-term earnings forecasts exhibit significantly lower absolute abnormal accruals, our proxy for earnings management, than do firms that do not issue earnings forecasts. Regular guiders also exhibit less earnings management than do less regular guiders. These findings are contrary to conventional wisdom but consistent with the implications of Dutta and Gigler (2002) and the expectations alignment role of earnings guidance (Ajinkya and Gift 1984). Our results continue to hold after we control for self-selection and potential reverse causality concerns, and in a setting where managers are documented to have strong incentives to manage earnings. Additional analysis reveals that guiding firms exhibit less income-increasing accrual management whether firms guide expectations upwards or downwards, and no evidence that guiding firms inflate earnings through real activities management. We also provide evidence to demonstrate that meeting-or-beating benchmarks is not an appropriate proxy for earnings management in our research setting.