Suvra Roy, Ben R. Marshall, Hung T. Nguyen, Nuttawat Visaltanachoti
{"title":"Stock price crashes and systematic risk","authors":"Suvra Roy, Ben R. Marshall, Hung T. Nguyen, Nuttawat Visaltanachoti","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100509","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100509","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We show that firm systematic risk increases following stock price crashes. This occurs in both low- and high-beta companies and is robust to alternate proxies of systematic risk. Crashed firms face difficulty raising capital or obtaining loans, exacerbating default risk. Our results indicate that the increased systematic risk is due to increased default risk. There is no evidence to support information asymmetry as a channel for higher beta following crashes. We show that the increase in systematic risk results in higher costs for equity financing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100509"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145219390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From stethoscopes to boardrooms: CEOs’ medical degree and merger performance","authors":"Omer Unsal","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100508","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100508","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores how CEOs with medical degrees (M.D.) impact mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. We discover that doctor CEOs tend to engage in fewer M&A deals, but when they do, these transactions show better outcomes. Investors respond positively to mergers led by M.D. CEOs, signaling confidence in their decisions. Similarly, target firms led by doctor CEOs experience positive market reactions, lasting up to 20 %. Rather than engaging in frequent mergers, doctor CEOs form a greater number of strategic alliances, expand their businesses, and produce more medical innovation. Overall, this study sheds light on the distinctive strategies employed by doctor CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry, providing valuable insights for ever-changing landscape of healthcare business.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100508"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145219389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Functional industrial policy effects of the Belt and Road Initiative: evidence from digital innovation","authors":"Chang Xu , Jianguang Hu , Lu Li","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100506","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100506","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on the digital innovation of China’s A-share listed companies, drawing upon the theoretical framework of functional industrial policy. The results indicate that the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative effectively enhances the level of firms’ digital innovation. The underlying mechanisms are identified as the alleviation of financing constraints and the enhancement of ESG performance. Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that the positive impact is more pronounced among state-owned enterprises, firms in key-involved industries, large-scale firms, and those operating in capital-intensive sectors. Further research suggests that the Belt and Road Initiative primarily influences open digital innovation. This study advances the understanding of the effects of functional industrial policies, while offering meaningful insights for firm-level digital innovation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100506"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145219391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Xiao Gu , Yeng Wai Lau , Saidatunur Fauzi bin Saidin
{"title":"The spillover effects of auditor sanctions on clients: evidence from stock exchange comment letters in China","authors":"Xiao Gu , Yeng Wai Lau , Saidatunur Fauzi bin Saidin","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100505","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100505","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the spillover effects of auditor sanctions on client firms. Using the DID model, results of listed Chinese A-share firms for the 2015–2022 period provide evidence of an adverse spillover effects of auditor sanctions where client firms have a higher probability of receiving exchange comment letters that are more severe, indicating that corporate regulators value the reputational damage of auditor sanctions. The spillover effects are more pronounced when auditor sanctions are more severe, news reports of sanction events are higher, or the audit firm is smaller. Additional analyses suggest that such adverse spillover effects are reflected in increased clients’ negative media attention and lower assessment of the quality of client firms’ accounting information. However, client firms’ online information disclosures on regulated, exchange interactive platforms can mitigate such adverse spillover effects. This study expands the boundaries of extant literature on the consequences of auditor sanctions in an emerging market and sheds light on how client firms can cope with the resultant reputation loss.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100505"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145117897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Auditors’ communication with the audit committee and audit opinion shopping","authors":"Yewon Kim , Jaehee Jo , Meeok Cho","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100504","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100504","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates whether and how external auditors’ communication with the audit committee (AC) influences opportunistic auditor changes by corporations. We adopt the framework developed by <span><span>Lennox (2000)</span></span> to measure the likelihood of firms engaging in opinion shopping. Using data from Korean listed firms that established an AC from 2018 to 2020, we find that greater communication between auditors and the AC is associated with a decrease in opinion shopping behavior. This effect is more pronounced when AC members are independent, when the AC chair has accounting financial expertise, and when communication between auditors and the AC addresses internal control deficiencies. Overall, our study sheds light on the effectiveness of auditors’ communication with the AC in deterring opportunistic auditor choices, offering valuable insights for policymakers and regulators.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100504"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of product recalls on Non-GAAP reporting decisions","authors":"Hannah E. Richards , Yuan Shi , Hongkang Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100501","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100501","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine whether product recalls impact the likelihood of disclosure and quality of non-GAAP earnings. With increased scrutiny, firms may limit voluntary disclosures or use them to counteract negative publicity. Similarly, product recalls could motivate firms to report higher-quality non-GAAP earnings to provide a more accurate view of the financial impact of product recalls or report more aggressive non-GAAP earnings to counteract the decline in financial performance. Using a sample period of 2004 to 2017, we find that firms are less likely to disclose non-GAAP earnings after announcing a product recall. For firms that choose to release non-GAAP earnings after announcing a product recall, we find that the quality of non-GAAP earnings improves. This finding suggests that product recalls may prompt firms to adopt more conservative reporting practices, both in terms of the likelihood and quality of disclosures. Our study provides insights into firms’ strategic disclosure decisions and highlights the nuanced ways firms manage non-GAAP disclosures to navigate the challenges posed by product recalls.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100501"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Feedback effect of social media on corporate investment Efficiency: Evidence from Firm’s Twitter presence and engagement","authors":"Atul Singh , Vicki Wei Tang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100503","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100503","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine whether social media presence and engagement have a feedback effect on corporate investment efficiency. Utilizing 352 million responses from the corporate Twitter accounts of 2062 US firms, we find that both underinvesting and overinvesting firms deviate less from predicted investment levels after initiating presence on Twitter. Furthermore, the more engaged the followers are, the smaller the deviation from expected investment levels. The effects are robust to including information incorporated in stock prices and other information sources. Our findings provide evidence that managerial learning is one channel underlying the link between social media and corporate investment efficiency. Cross-sectional results suggest that the managerial learning effect is more pronounced for consumer-facing firms. We also find that underinvesting firms learn from their peers’ social media presence. Additionally, firms’ operational efficiency also improves, corroborating the <em>feedback</em> effect of social media. Additional tests rule out endogeneity-related issues.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100503"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145018966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Executive compensation stickiness, social trust and enterprise innovation","authors":"Yafei Zu, Chenmin Ma, Qian Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100502","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100502","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Taking Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2009 to 2019 as samples, this study finds that executive compensation stickiness exhibits a significantly positive impact on enterprise innovation, with social trust playing a positive moderating role. This finding remains valid in a series of robustness tests. Channel analyses show that risk-taking plays a mediating role in the relationship between executive compensation stickiness and enterprise innovation. Cross-sectional analyses show that such positive effect is more significant for state-owned enterprises and enterprises with risk-averse executives, better supervisions, and in economically developed regions. Additional analyses indicate that, different types of executive compensation stickiness have great differences in incentive effect, and executive compensation stickiness can improve enterprise performance through enterprise innovation. This paper not only enriches the research on the consequences of executive compensation stickiness, but also expands insights into the interaction between formal and informal controls.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100502"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145010406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From corporate emissions to financial statements: Understanding accounting conservatism in the wake of carbon risks","authors":"Farhana Islam , Sudipta Bose , Sammy Xiaoyan Ying , Syed Shams","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100500","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100500","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the relationship between carbon risk and accounting conservatism using 7,636 firm-year observations from 29 countries. Using firms’ carbon emissions as a proxy for carbon risk, we find that firms with higher carbon risk exhibit greater conditional accounting conservatism. However, this positive relationship is weaker in firms with stronger corporate governance and higher institutional ownership, suggesting that effective internal and external monitoring reduces the reliance on conservative reporting in response to carbon-related exposures. Further analysis shows that the relationship becomes more pronounced after the 2015 Paris Agreement. The effect is also stronger in countries with active emissions trading schemes (ETS), higher governance quality, and stakeholder-oriented business cultures. These findings offer timely and policy-relevant insights for regulators, standard-setters, and policymakers, particularly in light of the introduction of IFRS S2 by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), which mandates climate-related financial disclosures and emphasizes the importance of integrating carbon risk into core financial reporting practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100500"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145157516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When major customers matter: customer concentration and ESG rating disagreement","authors":"Zhenghao Chang , Hang Zhou , Mengyu Ruan , Qin Li","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100499","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100499","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The phenomenon of different ESG rating agencies evaluating the same firm’s ESG performance differently has attracted widespread attention. This study examines how customer concentration influences ESG rating disagreement using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies spanning 2015–2022. Our findings demonstrate that customer concentration significantly increases ESG rating disagreement, with results remaining robust across various robustness tests. Dimensional analysis reveals that customer concentration exhibits a positive correlation with rating disagreements in the social (S) and governance (G) dimensions, while showing no significant relationship with disagreements in the environmental (E) dimension. Through mechanism testing, we identify three mechanisms: the quantity of ESG information disclosures, inventory turnover, and the stability of the top management team. Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that customer concentration exerts a more pronounced positive influence on ESG rating disagreement among firms operating in highly competitive industries, companies experiencing low supply and demand deviations, and industries significantly affected by supply chain dynamics. These findings contribute substantively to the literature examining both the role of customer concentration and the determinants of ESG rating disagreement from a supply chain perspective. The insights provided are crucial for understanding the mechanisms that influence sustainable development practices within firms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100499"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144826708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}