Corporate governance and impression management in annual press releases

We study the association between corporate governance and impression management in annual results press releases (ARPRs). Press releases constitute a timely vehicle to communicate firm performance to third parties. However, oftentimes, managers provide self-serving disclosures that attempt to distort readers¿ perceptions of corporate achievements. Corporate governance mechanisms actively monitor managerial disclosures, improving firm transparency. Thus, we predict that strong governance (i) increases firm voluntary release of ARPRs, and (ii) reduces impression management in those ARPRs. Tests are based on a sample of Spanish firms. The results confirm that strong governance firms are more likely to release an ARPR. In particular, board independence and the existence of remuneration and audit committees significantly determine this type of voluntary disclosure. We also show that strong governance limits impression management practices, consistent with governance monitoring effectively reducing self-serving disclosures by management. Our evidence is consistent with impression management being associated to firm news, suggesting that these practices respond, at least partly, to informative motivations. En este trabajo investigamos la asociación entre el gobierno corporativo y la manipulación de la presentación de la información en las notas de prensa. Las notas de prensa son uno de los medios que usan las empresas para comunicarse con terceras partes. A veces, las empresas revelan información con la intención de mostrar una imagen sesgada de la empresa. El gobierno corporativo es uno de los mecanismos que controlan la manipulación en la revelación de información y mejora la transparencia. Nuestras expectativas son que empresas con mejor gobierno corporativo (i) incrementen la revelación voluntaria y (2) muestren menos manipulación de la presentación de información en sus notas de prensa. Hemos analizado empresas Españolas cotizando en la Bolsa de Madrid. En particular, hemos encontrado que la independencia de los directivos y la existencia de comités de remuneración y de auditoria determinan el tipo de revelación de información voluntaria. Estos resultados confirman el papel de control que ejerce el gobierno corporativo para reducir efectivamente la presentación engañosa de la información. Nuestros resultados también muestran que la manipulación esta relacionada con las noticias de las empresas, lo que sugiere que estas practicas responden, al menos en parte, a razones informativas.Gobierno corporativo, manipulación de la presentación, revelación voluntaria Corporate governance, impression management, voluntary disclosure

The effect of earnings management on the asymmetric timeliness of earnings.

Is earnings management affecting (driving) the measures of earnings conservatism?Ball et al. (2000) point out that the asymmetry in the recognition of good and bad news in earnings (faster recognition of bad news: earnings conservatism) is more pronounced in common‐law than in code‐law based accounting regimes. However, comparative studies on earnings conservatism in Europe have failed to identify significant differences between common‐law and code‐law based countries. We argue that in code‐law based countries managers have incentives to reduce earnings consistently. This enhances the association between earnings and returns in bad news periods. We find that after controlling for discretionary accruals, the differential earnings response to bad news in Germany and France decreases significantly.Conservatism; Earnings management; Europe; Comparability;

The economic determinants of conditional conservatism.

We study the economic determinants of conditional conservatism. Consistent with prior literature, we find that contracting induces only conditional conservatism and litigation induces both conditional and unconditional conservatism. We extend prior evidence by Qiang (2007) by showing that taxation and regulation induce not only unconditional conservatism, but conditional conservatism as well. We show that in certain scenarios taxation and regulation create incentives to shift income from periods with high taxation pressure and high public scrutiny to periods with lower taxation pressure and lower public scrutiny. These income shifting strategies are implemented by recognising current economic losses that, given managerial incentives to report aggressively, would not have been recognized otherwise, or by delaying the recognition of current economic gains that would have been recognized had circumstances been different.Conservatism; Contracting; Taxation; Political costs; Litigation risk;

Accounting conservatism and corporate governance.

We predict that firms with stronger corporate governance will exhibit a higher degree of accounting conservatism. Governance level is assessed using a composite measure that incorporates several internal and external characteristics. Consistent with our prediction, strong governance firms show significantly higher levels of conditional accounting conservatism. Our tests take into account the endogenous nature of corporate governance, and the results are robust to the use of several measures of conservatism (market-based and nonmarket-based). Our evidence is consistent with the direction of causality flowing from governance to conservatism, and not vice versa, indicating that governance and conservatism are not substitutes. Finally, we study the impact of earnings discretion on the sensitivity of earnings to bad news across governance structures. We find that, on average, strong-governance firms appear to use discretionary accruals to inform investors about bad news in a timelier mannerConditional conservatism; Corporate governance; Managerial discretion;

Conditional conservatism and cost of capital.

We empirically test the association between conditional conservatism and cost of equity capital. Conditional conservatism imposes stronger verification requirements for the recognition of economic gains than economic losses, resulting in earnings that reflect losses faster than gains. This asymmetric reporting of gains and losses is predicted to lower firm cost of equity capital by increasing bad news reporting precision, thereby reducing information uncertainty (Guay and Verrecchia 2007) and the volatility of future stock prices (Suijs 2008). Using standard asset-pricing tests, we find a significant negative relation between conditional conservatism and excess average stock returns over the period 1975-2003. This evidence is corroborated by further tests on the association between conditional conservatism and measures of implied cost of capital derived from analysts’ forecasts.Conditional conservatism; Asymmetric reporting; Cost of capital; Information precision; Uncertainty;

Board of directors' characteristics and conditional accounting conservatism : Spanish evidence.

Using a sample of Spanish listed firms for the period 1997-2002 we find that firms where the CEO has low influence over the functioning of the board of directors show a greater degree of accounting conservatism. We measure the influence of the CEO over the board of directors using two aggregate indexes combining 6 (8) characteristics of the functioning of the board of directors and its monitoring committees: board size, proportion of non-executive directors, proportion of independent directors, whether the chairman of the board is an executive director, the number of board meetings, and the existence of an audit committee, a nomination/remuneration committee and an executive committee. We define conservatism as the asymmetric recognition speed of good and bad news in earnings, and we measure it following Basu (1997) and Ball and Shivakumar (2005). Our results are robust to alternative specifications and specific controls for investment opportunities and for the endogenous nature of corporate governance and earnings quality. Overall, our evidence shows that firms with strong boards use conservative accounting numbers as a governance tool, even in an institutional setting with low litigation risk such as SpainConservatism; Governance; CEO; Board of Directors; Earnings Timeliness; Spain;

Earnings quality in ex-post failed firms.

This paper analyses earnings quality in ex-post failed firms. Using a large sample of UK bankrupt firms, we find that failed firms manage earnings upwards in the four years prior to failure. This manipulation is achieved in two ways: (1) through accounting (accruals) manipulation; and (2) by implementing real operating actions that deviate from normal practice. We show that these two types of manipulation lead to reduced earnings reliability. We use conditional conservatism as a proxy for reliability, as prior literature links conditional accounting conservatism to better governance and positive economic outcomes. Our results show that conditional conservatism decreases substantially in the years prior to failure. Finally, we show that accruals manipulation is more pronounced in ex-post bankrupt firms with low ex-ante probability of failure, and that ex-post bankrupt firms with high ex-ante failure probability, having likely exhausted the opportunities for accrual manipulation, manipulate real operations more aggressivelyFirm failure; Accruals management; Real earnings management; Conditional conservatism; Earnings quality; Bankruptcy;

Effects of database choice on international accounting research.

Data availability is one of the traditional obstacles confronting researchers carrying out international empirical studies in accounting. In recent years several databases have claimed to offer comprehensive coverage of accounting and financial data of firms worldwide. We analyse whether the choice of database has an effect on the results of empirical studies. We find that the results of a simple empirical adaptation of the Ohlson (1995) model for fourteen member states of the European Union change significantly depending on the database chosen (Datastream, Global Vantage, Company Analysis, Worldscope, Thomson Financial, Financials and BvD Osiris). These differences are mainly attributable to differences in the samples across databases. When we match observations across all databases the differences persist but are much less pronounced. Our main conclusion is that database choice matters, as it leads to different results when the same research design is used.Database comparability; International empirical research;

Accounting conservatism and the profitability of corporate insiders

We predict that accounting conservatism influences insiders opportunities to speculate on good and bad news, and thus, insider trading profitability. We find that greater conditional (unconditional) conservatism is associated with lower (higher) insiders profitability from sales. We find limited evidence that conservatism influences profitability from purchases. These findings are consistent with our hypotheses on the different informational roles ofconditional and unconditional conservatism, and on the asymmetric influence of conservatism over the opportunities to speculate on good versus bad news. Our research design takes intoconsideration the endogenous nature of insiders trading and conservatism. The results are robust to different measures of conservatism and a number of additional analyses.CAM. Grant Number: H2015/HUM-3353 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Grant Number: ECO2016-77579 European Regional Development Fund. Grant Number: UNC315-EE-363

Earnings quality in ex-post failed firms

This paper analyses earnings quality in ex-post failed firms. Using a large sample of UK bankrupt firms, we find that failed firms manage earnings upwards in the four years prior to failure. This manipulation is achieved in two ways: (1) through accounting (accruals) manipulation; and (2) by implementing real operating actions that deviate from normal practice. We show that these two types of manipulation lead to reduced earnings reliability. We use conditional conservatism as a proxy for reliability, as prior literature links conditional accounting conservatism to better governance and positive economic outcomes. Our results show that conditional conservatism decreases substantially in the years prior to failure. Finally, we show that accruals manipulation is more pronounced in ex-post bankrupt firms with low ex-ante probability of failure, and that ex-post bankrupt firms with high ex-ante failure probability, having likely exhausted the opportunities for accrual manipulation, manipulate real operations more aggressivelyEuropean Commission INTACCT Research Training Network (MRTNCT- 2006-035850), and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (ECO2008-0638/ECON and SEJ2007- 67582/ECON and SEJ2005-08644/ECO)Publicad