{"title":"Lending corruption and bank loan contracting: Cross-Country evidence","authors":"Liangliang Jiang, Chong Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100415","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Using World Bank survey data, we document that banks extend more favorable loan terms to borrowers in countries with more lending corruption. This relation is stronger when borrowers have financing constraints but weaker in countries with stronger monitoring of foreign bank ownership or with stronger religiosity. We also find that banks in countries with high lending corruption have poor loan quality and earnings performance and are more susceptible to trouble during a financial crisis. Overall, our findings suggest that corruption “greases the wheels” for borrowers but is detrimental to bank shareholders.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 2","pages":"Article 100415"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140113452","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":"Managerial ability and supply chain power","authors":"G M Wali Ullah , Jane Luo , Alfred Yawson","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100414","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100414","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper investigates how major customer firms, managed by highly capable managers, can gain bargaining power over their suppliers. Our results document a positive association between managerial ability and the supply chain power a major customer firm holds over its suppliers. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns, tested through two-stage least squares (2SLS) regressions and difference-in-differences estimates surrounding forced CEO turnovers. We find the positive association to be stronger for durable goods manufacturers and higher ability managers engaged in socially responsible activities and corporate innovation. We provide evidence that higher-ability managers use their enhanced bargaining power to secure greater supplier trade credit.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 2","pages":"Article 100414"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566924000146/pdfft?md5=c9f7080b008d6e592dac14fbe3c67db6&pid=1-s2.0-S1815566924000146-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140054570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Predicting financial distress using machine learning approaches: Evidence China","authors":"Md Jahidur Rahman , Hongtao Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100403","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>This study uses machine learning techniques to construct financial distress prediction (FDP) models for Chinese A-listed construction companies and compares their classification performance with conventional Z-Score models. Three machine learning algorithms (Classification and Regression Tree, AdaBoost, and CUSBoost) are used to generate machine-learning-based classifiers, and four Z-Score models (Altman Z-Score, Sorins/Voronova Z-Score, Springate, and Z-Score of Ng et al.) are selected for comparison. The sample comprises 1782 firm-year observations from Chinese A-listed construction companies on the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchanges from 2012 to 2021. The out-of-sample predicting performance of the classifiers are measured using the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and under the precision-recall curve (AUPR). In additional tests, Pearson's correlation coefficients and the variance </span>inflation<span> factor are utilized to identify correlations among the raw financial predictors, while principal component analysis<span> is used to address high-correlation issues among the features. Results confirm that machine learning classifiers can effectively predict financial distress for Chinese A-listed construction companies and are more accurate than Z-Score models. Furthermore, the CUSBoost classifier is identified as the most precise model based on the AUC and AUPR metrics in both primary and additional tests. This study addresses the gap concerning the application of machine learning in FDP for Chinese-listed construction companies. Additionally, the CUSBoost Algorithm is introduced into the field of FDP research for the first time. Through the comparison of machine learning and Z-Score models, this study also contributes to the literature related to the contrast between machine learning and statistical modeling techniques.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100403"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139682476","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":"Chaebol-affiliated analysts and biases in interpreting accruals","authors":"Seunghee Yang , Lee-Seok Hwang , Yewon Kim","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100402","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100402","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates whether analysts exhibit accrual-related biases in forecasting earnings in the presence of conflicts of interest arising from business group affiliation. Our findings reveal that chaebol-affiliated analysts are more likely to overreact to accruals than do independent analysts by overestimating the persistence of accruals. Notably, affiliated analysts’ accrual-related biases are not reduced with analysts’ experience but intensify when analysts have stronger incentives to provide favorable forecasts for member firms. This suggests a possibility that in the presence of conflicts of interest analysts do not fully incorporate the implications of accruals into their forecasts, potentially with an intention to benefit group interests. In additional analyses, we find that the presence of affiliated analysts does not exacerbate accrual mispricing, which suggests that investors do not take affiliated analysts’ biased forecasts at face value. We also provide evidence that despite issuing less accurate forecasts than unaffiliated analysts, affiliated analysts do not necessarily encounter more career disadvantages.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100402"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139577865","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":"Do managers respond to tax avoidance incentives by investing in the tax function? Evidence from tax departments","authors":"John Li","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100401","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100401","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While prior literature examines the role of certain incentives in motivating top managers (CEOs and CFOs) to engage in corporate tax avoidance, there is little evidence on the specific actions that managers take in response to these incentives. Motivated by the premise that a manager can influence a firm’s tax activities by directing resources towards the tax function, I investigate whether four specific tax avoidance incentives studied in prior literature (financial constraints, equity risk incentives, hedge fund interventions, and analyst cash flow forecasts) induce managers to make investments in hiring personnel within the firm’s tax department. Using a dataset of tax department employees collected from the professional networking website <em>LinkedIn</em>, I find evidence that each incentive is significantly associated with an increase in the number of individuals employed within the tax department. This association is generally stronger among higher ranked employees and employees with prior tax department experience. Overall, my findings are consistent with the premise that managers invest resources in the tax function when they are incentivized to avoid taxes. My study also provides some assurance that the association between tax avoidance incentives and effective tax rates documented in prior studies is reflective of intentional tax avoidance behavior.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100401"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566924000018/pdfft?md5=17cec1eabe35ee5fe82b5d420de25964&pid=1-s2.0-S1815566924000018-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139515121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A robust model to estimate a firm’s average economic return","authors":"Morris G. Danielson","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100400","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100400","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Theoretical studies question the ability of financial statement information to provide evidence about a firm’s economic performance, as the mathematical relation between a firm’s accounting and economic returns becomes intractable when economic depreciation is defined endogenously—as a function of the firm’s cash flow stream—and when its internal rate of return (IRR) and investment growth rate have not been constant. This paper derives a new equation, called the average internal rate of return (</span><em>AIRR</em>) estimation model, in which a firm’s <em>AIRR</em> is estimated as a function of its current-year accounting return, its current-year asset growth rate, a measure of accounting conservatism, and a term that identifies the firm’s historical investment growth rate <em>trend</em>. Because the model allows economic depreciation to be defined exogenously, non-constant returns and growth rates can be aggregated across investment cohorts, allowing a firm’s accounting return to be reconciled to its <em>average</em> economic return. One such exogenous schedule—called competitive market depreciation—is used to illustrate the model’s implications. The <em>AIRR</em><span> estimation model empowers analysts to identify the direction and magnitude of the potential difference between a firm’s accounting and economic return created by fixed asset depreciation, accounting accruals<span>, and the immediate expensing of intangible assets.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100400"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139375430","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":"Acquirers’ political connections and bargaining outcomes in corporate takeover negotiations: Evidence from antitrust reviews","authors":"Simon Yu Kit Fung, Lawrence (Hong) Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100399","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100399","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We examine how acquirers’ political connections affect takeover bargaining that involves significant regulatory uncertainties, when the target’s options of putting itself to another bidder are restricted. Opposite to prior takeover theories, we show that a politically connected acquirer pays a lower (rather than higher) takeover premium to and shares a smaller portion of the takeover gains with the target in the context of antitrust reviews, consistent with a bargaining benefit for the connected acquirer. Corroborating this bargaining argument, we find that the results are more pronounced in situations where: (1) the antitrust concerns are more severe; (2) the targets have fewer outside options other than the connected acquirers; and (3) the acquirers’ political connections are more valuable. Our results highlight the value of political connections to shareholders in takeovers, affecting not only the likelihood of completion but also the bargaining outcomes of the deal under the shadow of costly regulation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100399"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566923000498/pdfft?md5=ed30292d501f88a02c27224062e42327&pid=1-s2.0-S1815566923000498-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139079019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does opinion shopping impair auditor independence? Evidence from tax avoidance","authors":"Heesun Chung , Eugenia Y. Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100398","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100398","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this study, we investigate whether a firm’s opportunistic switching of auditors for a favorable audit opinion, known as opinion shopping (OS), affects its tax avoidance activities. Using a sample of Korean firms over the 2006–2018 period, we find that firms that switch auditors for OS purposes engage in more aggressive tax avoidance than other firms. The association between OS-driven auditor switches and tax avoidance is more pronounced for switches to non-Big 4 auditors than to Big 4 auditors. The results are robust to various robustness tests that attempt to control for differences in the characteristics of OS and non-OS firms. Collectively, the findings suggest that auditors hired as a result of OS allow their clients to engage in more aggressive tax avoidance, which is consistent with impaired auditor independence. We contribute to the literature on OS by documenting evidence of the negative consequence of OS on corporate tax compliance. In addition, our findings suggest that firms’ tax and audit behaviors need to be monitored concurrently.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100398"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139051363","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}
Xin Chang , Yangyang Chen , Kangkang Fu , Endong Yang
{"title":"Institutional investor horizons, information environment, and firm financing decisions","authors":"Xin Chang , Yangyang Chen , Kangkang Fu , Endong Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100397","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100397","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We provide evidence that the investment horizons of institutional shareholders affect firms’ financing decisions. We find that short-term institutional ownership positively affects firms’ likelihood of equity relative to debt issues, the size of equity issues, and the likelihood of long-term relative to short-term debt issues. Firms held more by short-term institutions have lower financial leverage and longer debt maturities. These results suggest that short-horizon institutions, backed by buy-side research, improve the transparency of the information environment, which allows firms to issue more information-sensitive securities. Our findings suggest that institutional investor horizons influence firms’ financing decisions by shaping their information environment.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100397"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139051153","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 top management team incentive dispersion on Non-GAAP reporting","authors":"Hannah E. Richards , Yuan Shi , Hongkang Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100396","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100396","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We examine whether the dispersion of pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) amongst the top management team (TMT) impacts the likelihood of firms disclosing non-GAAP earnings and the quality of non-GAAP earnings. Management compensation contracts are designed to incentivize executive team members individually and in the aggregate. By structuring these contracts to have similar PPS, those charged with governance can increase collaboration amongst the TMT. However, this collaboration can turn into the TMT colluding to make firm decisions that result in the highest compensation for the TMT. Thus, a greater dispersion of PPS can lead to less collusion. We find that the likelihood of firms reporting non-GAAP earnings decreases and the quality of non-GAAP earnings disclosures increases when there is a higher dispersion of PPS. These findings are consistent with executives that are less incentivized by temporary stock price increases suppressing other executives from eliciting firm scrutiny by disclosing non-GAAP earnings and releasing low-quality non-GAAP earnings. Additionally, we find these effects on non-GAAP earnings are more likely to occur in firms with weaker governance and when the management team has a shorter tenure of working together. Overall, our research provides evidence of the association between the dispersion of TMT PPS and non-GAAP earnings decisions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100396"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138679928","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}