We explore whether disclosures in the Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) have spillover effects for investment and investment efficiency, and whether spillover effects vary with competition. We focus on the tone of MD&A disclosures and document that the association between a company's investments and the tone of its rivals' MD&A disclosures is positive. Moreover, this association is moderated by competition; it is stronger when firms operate in industries that have lower entry costs, are larger, and have less substitutable products. We obtain similar results for investment efficiency. Overall, our evidence suggests that MD&A disclosures have spillover effects for investment that can improve investment efficiency, and that spillover effects are moderated by industry competition.
参考文献：Durnev, Art, and Claudine Mangen. “The Spillover Effects of MD&A Disclosures for Real Investment: The Role of Product Market Competition.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101299.
This paper studies strategic interactions between public and private enforcement of accounting regulation and their consequences for the deterrence of financial misreporting. We develop an economic model with a manager, a public enforcement agency, and an investor and derive equilibrium strategies for manipulative effort, routine investigative effort, and costly private litigation. Our main results are as follows. (i) Strengthening private enforcement unambiguously enhances deterrence, whereas strengthening public enforcement can exacerbate misreporting, due to a crowding out of private enforcement. We provide conditions under which (ii) the enforcer's investigation incentives first increase and then decrease in the strength of private enforcement, (iii) public and private enforcement are strategic substitutes, (iv) the number of enforcement actions is misleading about public enforcement effectiveness, and (v) strengthening private enforcement decreases litigation risk. We also discuss implications of our results for empirical research.
参考文献：Schantl, Stefan F., and Alfred Wagenhofer. “Deterrence of Financial Misreporting When Public and Private Enforcement Strategically Interact.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101311.
This study examines how PCAOB international inspections of non-U.S. auditors affect international Merger and Acquisition (M&A) outcomes. We find that clients of inspected auditors are more likely to become acquisition targets after the public disclosure of auditor's inspection report. We also find that deal completion is more likely and deal announcement returns are higher if deals involve targets with auditors for which inspection reports are available. Engagement deficiencies and unremediated quality control deficiencies identified in inspection reports weaken the positive effect of PCAOB oversight on M&A outcomes. Collectively, our results suggest that PCAOB oversight reduces information uncertainty in M&A deals.
参考文献：Kim, Yongtae, et al. “PCAOB International Inspections and Merger and Acquisition Outcomes.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101318.
Effective tax rates (ETRs) are often used to compare tax avoidance across firms and time. Using firms' detailed tax footnote data, we find that the effect of valuation allowances (VA) related to prior-period losses biases GAAP ETRs. This downward bias explains almost all of the downward trend in domestic firms' ETRs over the last 20 years. We also find that VAs explain cross-sectional differences in ETRs for both domestic and multinational firms. We show this bias extends to cash ETRs and the Henry and Sansing (2018) tax avoidance measure. We develop a methodology for substantially reducing the bias in both time-series and cross-sectional analyses of cash and GAAP ETRs. Overall, our results suggest firms’ loss histories and GAAP rules influence inferences from tax avoidance proxies.
参考文献：Kim, Yongtae, et al. “PCAOB International Inspections and Merger and Acquisition Outcomes.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101318.
We test the political cost hypothesis using local soldier fatalities as a source of as-if-random variation in the threat of political costs for local defense firms. Soldier fatalities vary the threat of political costs for defense firms because the U.S. tradition of shared sacrifice during war vulgarizes war profits amid dead soldiers. Local defense firms record more income-decreasing accruals, equal to 1.17 percent of total assets, in response to a one standard deviation increase in local soldier fatalities (an additional 29 soldier fatalities in the average state-year). A wide variety of robustness tests corroborate our inferences.
参考文献：Boland, Matthew, and David Godsell. “Local Soldier Fatalities and War Profiteers: New Tests of the Political Cost Hypothesis.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101316.
We study how biases in financial reporting affect managers' incentives to develop innovative projects and to make appropriate investment decisions. Conservative reporting practices impose stricter verification standards for recognizing good news, and reduce the chance that risky innovations will lead to favorable future earnings reports. Holding all else constant, more conservative reporting therefore weakens the manager's incentive to work on innovative ideas, consistent with informal arguments in the extant literature. However, all else does not stay constant because the manager's pay plan will change in response to changes in the accounting system. We show that under optimal contracting, more conservative accounting does not stifle innovation in organizations, but rather increases incentives for innovation, as long as conservatism reduces the risk of an overstatement.
参考文献：Laux, Volker, and Korok Ray. “Effects of Accounting Conservatism on Investment Efficiency and Innovation.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101319.
We study the role of reputation in auditor-client matching. Using 1.2 million employment records from US broker-dealers, we find that broker-dealer clients of the same auditor have similar financial adviser misconduct profiles. Our estimates indicate that variation in client misconduct behavior is nearly half as important as variation in client size in explaining matches. Auditors adjust their portfolios when presented with new information about client behavior, and those with the most significant reputation concerns are least likely to deal with high misconduct clients. Finally, we find that an auditor's reputation for accepting high misconduct clients predicts their new clients' future misconduct. Together, our results present new evidence on how reputation affects audit relationships, and the consequences of auditors' reputation concerns for client behavior. Our results also indicate an unintended consequence of audit mandates: non-discerning auditors emerge to serve clients with low endogenous demand for auditing.
参考文献：Cook, Jonathan A., et al. “Auditors Are Known by the Companies They Keep.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101314.
We examine how cultural differences among agents influence the aggregate outcome of a common forecasting task. Using both exogenous shocks to sell-side analyst diversity and panel regression methods, we find that increases in analyst cultural diversity positively affect the quality of the consensus earnings forecast. We further provide evidence on the potential mechanisms underlying this result by showing that cultural diversity is associated with improvements in individual analyst forecasts, greater analyst conference call participation and interaction, and greater diversity in analyst education backgrounds and professional interests. Overall, our results indicate that greater cultural differences among agents producing an aggregate forecast are associated with a higher quality consensus forecast.
参考文献：Merkley, Kenneth J., et al. “Cultural Diversity on Wall Street: Evidence from Consensus Earnings Forecasts.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 70, no. 1, 2020, p. 101330.
Managers almost always define non-GAAP earnings to exclude the effects of acquisition and restructuring expenses, the amortization of intangibles, and impairments. I find that managers with a history of reporting non-GAAP earnings act as if they place lower weight on these excluded expenses when making real activities and accounting choices. They pursue more and larger acquisitions, have higher total capital investment, are more likely to restructure, and are more likely to recognize discretionary impairments. In a difference-in-differences setting, I find that non-GAAP reporting firms are less likely to alter their restructuring activities following a significant change in accounting rules for restructuring expense recognition. Finally, in supplementary analyses, I find that non-GAAP-reporting firms tend to repeat these real activities and accounting choices year-after-year, resulting in more persistent special-item expenses.
