Essays on Accounting Conservatism

I examine the role of accounting conservatism in the debt market and equity market. In the first essay I examine whether post-borrowing accounting conservatism is related to initial debt-covenant slack. I find firms with low debt-covenant slack display a smaller increase in conservatism after borrowing compared to firms with high debt-covenant slack. I further find that this relation is more pronounced when the cost of debt-covenant breach is greater and is less pronounced when lenders have stronger monitoring incentives. This study supports the debt covenant hypothesis. The second essay investigates the impact of financial market competition on a firm\u27s choice regarding accounting quality: co-authored). The estimates indicate that foreign bank entry is associated with improved accounting quality among firms, and this improvement is positively related to a firm\u27s subsequent debt level. The increase in accounting quality is also greatest among private firms, smaller firms, less profitable firms, and firms more dependent on external financing. The third essay investigates whether conditional accounting conservatism has informational benefits to shareholders: co-authored). We find some evidence that higher current conditional conservatism is associated with lower probability of future bad news. We also find weak evidence that the stock market reacts stronger: weaker) to good: bad) earnings news of more conditionally conservative firms. Thus, we provide additional evidence that conditional conservatism affects stock prices

Studies on actinobacillus equuli

The morphological, cultural and biochemical characteristics of 138 strains of Actinpbacillus equuli from various sources have been investigated and evaluated in order to provide useful criteria for the identification of this taxonomically disputed species of microorganism.The antigenic structure of all these strains was investigated by agglutination and agglutinin-absorption tests and 98.6 per cent, of them can be arranged into 28 groups on the basis of their heat-stable antigens (O antigens). The heat-labile antigens associated with extracellular slime have been demonstrated and found to be relatively common to organisms of different O groups. Although agglutination tests offer a means of classifying this serologically heterogeneous group of organisms, the autoagglutinability of rough strains and inagglutinability due to its viscous nature have often been found to interfere with such tests. Thus the feasibility of applying other serological procedures to overcome the difficulties has been sought and a passive haemagglutination test and an immunodiffusion precipitin test for serogroupiny of A. equuli were developed. The conditions for the passive haemagglutination test have been investigated and are discussed in some detail with special reference to the soluble antigens of A. equuli. Heat extracts of the organisms were used in the immunodiffusion precipitin test to group A. equuli strains into 28 O-groups. The immunodiffusion precipitin test appeared to be the test of choice for the serogrouping of isolates of A. equuli because of its specificity and its simplicity and rapidity in performance. Moreover, the immunodiffusion precipitin test has a great advantage over the other serological methods in showing a clear proof of an antigenic relationship between 0 groups.The work has shown that serological classification of the organism is fairly well correlated with certain biochemical characters of the organism and the majority of the strains can be arranged into two main divisions. The term biotype is applied for the differentiation of these divisions of A« equuli. Of the 138 strains studied, 84 were of Type I, 42 were of Type II and the remaining 12 were intermediate in type. Type I strains gave a positive reaction with mannitol, whilst their reaction with salicin and cellobiose were negative. All the strains comprising Type I were aesculin-negative and, with the exception of one, non-haemolytic. These strains fell into O groups 1-22 inclusive. On the other hand, Type II strains were mannitol negative, whilst the majority of the strains fermented salicin and cellobiose and hydrolysed aesculin, and all haemolysed sheep erythrocytes. The Type II strains were made up of 0 groups 24 - 28 inclusive.An antigenic relationship between A. equuli, A. suis and A. lignieresi has been demonstrated. Comparative biochemical and serological studies of these 3 species of Actinobacillus have shown that A. suis is closely related to Type II of A. equuli and that A. suis differs sufficiently from both A. lignieresi and Type I of A. equuli to warrant its separation as a different species within the genus.Further work is required to characterise haemolytic actinobacilli from horses and pigs, but the results obtained in the work appear to suggest the not infrequent occurrence in the upper respiratory tract of normal horses of organisms resembling A. suis and the association of such organisms with disease in this host species on occasions

Asymmetric Timeliness and Delayed Recognition of Bad News

This article examines whether the asymmetric timeliness measure captures delayed recognition of bad news and in which manner this delayed recognition occurs. I find that negative earnings changes of firms with high asymmetric timeliness have significant predictive power for future earnings changes of low-asymmetric-timeliness firms in the same industry. In contrast, the negative earnings changes of firms with low asymmetric timeliness do not have predictive power for future earnings changes of high-asymmetric-timeliness firms in the same industry. Moreover, neither type of firm has predictive power for the other group when earnings changes are positive. This result suggests that high-asymmetric-timeliness firms recognize the effects of a common negative shock before low-asymmetric-timeliness firms. Further, low-asymmetric-timeliness firms have more frequent and smaller negative earnings changes, suggesting that the eventual recognition of negative news trickles out as opposed to being recognized in an earnings bath

Do Firms Adjust Their Timely Loss Recognition in Response to Changes in the Banking Industry?

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the banking sector on firms’ timely recognition of economic losses. In particular, we focus on the entry of foreign banks into India during the 1990s, which likely causes an exogenous increase in lender demand for timely loss recognition. Analyzing variation in both the timing and the location of the new foreign banks’ entries, we find that foreign bank entry is associated with more timely loss recognition and this increase is positively related to a firm\u27s subsequent debt levels. The change appears driven by a shift in firms’ incentives to supply additional information to lenders and lenders seem to value this information. The increase in timely loss recognition is also concentrated among firms more dependent on external financing: private firms, smaller firms, and nongroup firms. Overall, our evidence suggests that a firm\u27s accounting choices respond to changes in the banking industry

Enzyme immunoassay for the rapid detection of Escherichia coli O157

An enzyme immunoassay(EIA) to detect Escherichia(E.) coli 0157 in pork was developed by using a sandwich-type assay on the 96-well microplates. All E. coli O157 strains and Citrobacter amalonaticus reacted strongly, however 29 E. coli serotypes and 15 non-E. coli bacterial strains showed negative in E. coli O157 EIA. E. coli 0157 in pork could be detected with in 13 h including 10 h in enrichment broth and 3 h in EIA. As few as 1.8 CFU of E. coli O157 per g of pork could be detected after enrichment, whereas above 1.8 \u3e. 1 o5 CFU of E. coli O157 per g of pork could be detected without enrichment. The E. coli 0157 EIA was a sensitive, easy-to-perform and efficient method for the screening of E. coliO 157 in pork