The Psychological Attraction Approach to Accounting and Disclosure Policy

We offer here the psychological attraction approach to accounting and disclosure rules, regulation, and policy as a program for positive accounting research. We suggest that psychological forces have shaped and continue to shape rules and policies in two different ways. (1) Good Rules for Bad Users: rules and policies that provide information in a form that is useful for users who are subject to bias and cognitive processing constraints. (2) Bad Rules: superfluous or even pernicious rules and policies that result from psychological bias on the part of the ‘designers’ (managers, users, auditors, regulators, politicians, or voters). We offer some initial ideas about psychological sources of the use of historical costs, conservatism, aggregation, and a focus on downside outcomes in risk disclosures. We also suggest that psychological forces cause informal shifts in reporting and disclosure regulation and policy, which can exacerbate boom/bust patterns in financial markets.Investor psychology; accounting regulation; disclosure policy; salience; omission bias; scapegoating; limited attention; overconfidence; conservatism; loss aversion; accrual; smoothing; mental accounting; historical cost; risk disclosure; value-at-risk

Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets

Prevailing models of capital markets capture a limited form of social influence and information transmission, in which the beliefs and behavior of an investor affects others only through market price, information transmission and processing is simple (without thoughts and feelings), and there is no localization in the influence of an investor on others. In reality, individuals often process verbal arguments obtained in conversation or from media presentations, and observe the behavior of others. We review here evidence concerning how these activities cause beliefs and behaviors to spread, affect financial decisions, and affect market prices; and theoretical models of social influence and its effects on capital markets. Social influence is central to how information and investor sentiment are transmitted, so thought and behavior contagion should be incorporated into the theory of capital markets.capital markets; thought contagion; behavioral contagion; herd behavior; information cascades; social learning; investor psychology; accounting regulation; disclosure policy; behavioral finance; market efficiency; popular models; memes

Accruals and Aggregate Stock Market Returns

Past research has shown that the level of operating accruals is a negative cross-sectional predictor of stock returns. This paper examines whether the accrual anomaly extends to the aggregate stock market. In contrast with cross-sectional findings, there is no indication that aggregate operating accruals is a negative time series predictor of stock market returns; the relation is strongly positive for the market portfolio and also for several sector and industry portfolios. In addition, innovations in accruals are negatively contemporaneously associated with market returns, suggesting that changes in accruals contain information about changes in discount rates, or that firms manage earnings in response to market-wide undervaluation.accruals; return predictability; stock market returns; market efficiency; asset pricing; anomalies; accounting; earnings fixation

Stock market misvaluation and corporate investment

This paper explores whether and why misvaluation affects corporate investment by comparing tangible and intangible investments; and by using a price-based misvaluation proxy that filters out scale and earnings growth prospects. Capital, and especially R\&D expenditures increase with overpricing; but only among overvalued firms. Misvaluation affects investment both directly (catering) and through equity issuance. The sensitivity of capital expenditures to misvaluation is stronger among financially constrained firms; for R&D this differential is strong and in the opposite direction. We identify several other factors that influence the strength of misvaluation effects on investment. Generally the equity channel reinforces direct catering, suggesting that the two are complementary. Overall, our evidence supports several implications of the misvaluation hypothesis for the tangible and intangible components of investment.behavioral finance; misvaluation; market efficiency; corporate investment

The Accrual Anomaly: Risk or Mispricing?

We document considerable return comovement associated with accruals after controlling for other common factors. An accrual-based factor-mimicking portfolio has a Sharpe ratio of 0.16, higher than that of the market factor or the SMB and HML factors of Fama and French (1993). In time series regressions, a model that includes the Fama-French factors and the additional accrual factor captures the accrual anomaly in average returns. However, further time series and cross-sectional tests indicate that it is the accrual characteristic rather than the accrual factor loading that predicts returns. These findings favor a behavioral explanation for the accrual anomaly.Capital markets; accruals; market efficiency; behavioral finance; limited attention

Are Overconfident CEOs Better Innovators?

Using options- and press-based proxies for CEO overconfidence (Malmendier and Tate 2005a, 2005b, 2008), we find that over the 1993-2003 period, firms with overconfident CEOs have greater return volatility, invest more in innovation, obtain more patents and patent citations, and achieve greater innovative success for given research and development (R&D) expenditure. Overconfident managers only achieve greater innovation than non-overconfident managers in innovative industries. Overconfidence is not associated with lower sales, ROA, or Q.CEO Overconfidence; Innovation; R&D; Patent

Disclosure to a Credulous Audience: The Role of Limited Attention

In our model, informed players decide whether or not to disclose, and observers allocate attention among disclosed signals, and toward reasoning through the implications of a failure to disclose. In equilibrium disclosure is incomplete, and observers are unrealistically optimistic. Nevertheless, regulation requiring greater disclosure can reduce observers' belief accuracies and welfare. A stronger tendency to neglect disclosed signals increases disclosure, whereas a stronger tendency to neglect failures to disclose reduces disclosure. Observer beliefs are influenced by the salience of disclosed signals, and disclosure in one arena can crowd out disclosure in other fundamentally unrelated arenas.disclosure; disclosure regulation; limited attention; credulity

Do short-sellers arbrtrage accrual-based return anomalies?

We find a positive association between short-selling and accruals, and between short-selling and NOA, during 1988-2003. The accrual and NOA return anomalies are asymmetric. The absolute value of mean abnormal returns is larger for high-accrual firms than low-accrual firms on NASDAQ, but not on NYSE, and the abnormal return asymmetry is stronger among firms with low institutional holdings. For NOA, there is only limited evidence that the abnormal return asymmetry is stronger on NASDAQ than on NYSE. These findings indicate that there is short arbitrage of the accrual and NOA anomalies, but that short sale constraints limit the effectiveness of short arbitrage (especially among NASDAQ firms).Accruals; NOA; anomalies; arbitrage; short sales; market efficiency

Disclosure to an Audience with Limited Attention

In our model, informed players decide whether or not to disclose, and observers allocate attention among disclosed signals, and toward reasoning through the implications of a failure to disclose. In equilibrium disclosure is incomplete, and observers are unrealistically optimistic. Nevertheless, regulation requiring greater disclosure can reduce observers' belief accuracies and welfare. A stronger tendency to neglect disclosed signals increases disclosure, whereas a stronger tendency to neglect failures to disclose reduces disclosure. Observer beliefs are influenced by the salience of disclosed signals, and disclosure in one arena can crowd out disclosure in other fundamentally unrelated arenas.Disclosure policy, disclosure regulation, limited attention, behavioral economics, behavioral accounting, behavioral finance, market efficiency, psychology and economics