{"title":"Geographically dispersed signing auditors and audit quality","authors":"Tianyu Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100493","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100493","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine how audit quality is affected by spatial arrangements of the audit team, specifically when the signing partners are geographically located in different provinces in China. Our baseline results show that dispersed signing auditors are related to higher audit quality and less audit opinion shopping. Further results suggest that this may be related to the better information and higher level of auditor independence for the geographically dispersed partners, and the effect is strongest when both channels are at work. Additional analyses show that the effect is weaker when coordination costs for geographical dispersion are higher, and we find that dispersed auditors are not related to higher audit fees or longer audit report lag. Overall, our findings underscore the positive influence of signing auditors’ geographical dispersion on audit quality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100493"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144653775","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":"EPU diversity, corporate investments, and corporate governance","authors":"Sirimon Treepongkaruna , Pornsit Jiraporn , Khine Kyaw","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100515","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100515","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine a critical aspect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) that has been largely overlooked – the diversity of uncertainty (or EPU diversity). Firms experience greater diversity of uncertainty when faced with multiple areas of uncertainty simultaneously, whereas a concentration of uncertainty in few areas results in lower EPU diversity. Dealing with multiple distinct areas of uncertainty is inherently more complex and riskier. Supporting this notion, our extensive analysis based on nearly 300,000 observations reveals that firms exercise greater caution and significantly reduce corporate investments and R&D intensity when confronting multiple sources of EPU. Notably, the impact of EPU diversity on corporate investments persists even after accounting for the overall level of EPU, indicating its separate and distinct significance. Importantly, we find that the negative effect of EPU diversity on corporate investments is significantly alleviated in firms with a greater presence of independent and female directors, implying that the reduction in investments that can be attributed to EPU diversity is at least partially motivated by agency conflicts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100515"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145465712","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":"Economic conditions and related party transactions in India","authors":"Ujjawal Sawarn , Abhishek Rohit , Ankit Kumar","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100498","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100498","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the impact of innovations in the level of economic activity—first-moment shocks—and its volatility, or uncertainty—second-moment shocks—on related party transactions (RPT) in India. Related parties face trade-offs between supporting the firm and extracting the private benefit, given the nature of first and second-moment shocks. Using fixed effects panel data regression for India, we find that during periods of high economic growth and low uncertainty, firms engage more in related party transactions to leverage existing relationships with affiliated entities, reduce transaction costs, and support one another. Furthermore, we find that the effect of economic growth on RPT increases after the enactment of the Indian Companies Act (2013), which mandates shareholders’ approval for material-related party transactions. We also explore the motives of RPT and find that this increase is due to business RPT and not opportunistic RPT, confirming the increase in economic activities. Apart from this, we also find that this relationship is more pronounced in manufacturing and profitable firms. We confirm our results using various robustness exercises such as alternate measures, instrumental variables, and serial correlation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100498"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144893238","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}
Tuba Toksoz , Sebahattin Demirkan Seb , Irem Demirkan , Birendra K. Mishra Barry
{"title":"CEO overconfidence across the firm lifecycle: effects on accounting outcomes and stock market reactions","authors":"Tuba Toksoz , Sebahattin Demirkan Seb , Irem Demirkan , Birendra K. Mishra Barry","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100511","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100511","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the relationship between CEO overconfidence and firm performance across different stages of the firm life cycle. Previous research has shown that an overconfident CEO’s personality can influence key decisions related to investments, financial reporting, and broader corporate policies. A firm’s evolution is shaped by shifts in both internal factors, such as investment and managerial choices, and external factors like industry trends and economic conditions. The existing literature suggests that the various stages of a firm’s life cycle significantly affect decision-making processes and profitability. Our findings indicate that firms led by overconfident CEOs exhibit varying performance outcomes and abnormal returns depending on the firm’s life cycle stage. Notably, firms tend to outperform and achieve positive future performance (abnormal stock market returns) during the growth mature and shakeout (growth and mature) stages. However, they experience weaker accounting performance during the decline stage. In addition, cross-sectional tests reveal that, in the decline stage, firms with a better information environment do not experience the negative impact of CEO overconfidence on future accounting performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100511"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145264874","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":"Pulling back the curtain, does news about a firm’s economic events before the earnings announcement help investors contextualize earnings surprise?","authors":"Justin Deng","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100478","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100478","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how news released throughout the prior quarter helps investors contextualize future earnings surprises. I find that news detailing specific firm events, or “event-based news releases,” in the quarter leading up to the earnings announcement reduces post-earnings announcement drift (+2, +60), but, interestingly, that Form 8-Ks are <em>in</em>effective in reducing this mispricing. To investigate this difference, I find that event-based news releases without an associated Form 8-K are much more likely to disclose events related to the firm’s core operations and specifically product and client announcements compared with event-based news releases that have an associated Form 8-K. I also compare total news releases with event-based news releases and find that event-based news releases specifically are associated with a reduction in post-earnings announcement drift. Lastly, I find that event-based news releases are more effective at reducing drift for firms with less disaggregated income statements and prior to the filing of the Form 10-Q/Form 10-K.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100478"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144239383","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-level internal governance and tax planning","authors":"David Folsom , Md Mahmudul Hasan , Fuzhao Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100492","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100492","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine whether executive-level internal governance affects the extent of tax avoidance in U.S. firms. Internal governance includes processes through which subordinate executives provide checks and balances in firms’ decision-making processes (Cheng et al. 2016). We use a combined empirical measure of the relative length of the key subordinate executives’ decision horizons and their relative influence compared to their respective CEOs to proxy for the strength of subordinate executives’ roles in firms’ internal governance structures. We find that cross-sectional differences in internal governance strength explain differences in proxies of firm-level tax planning. Specifically, we find that firms are more likely to engage in tax strategies that will reduce both short-term and long-term effective tax rates when executive-level internal governance is more robust.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100492"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771718","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":"Product market competition and R&D disclosure transparency: evidence from earnings communication conferences in China","authors":"Mengshu Hao , Yuan He","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100487","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100487","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how product market competition influences firms’ R&D disclosure transparency. Using a novel text-based measure derived from the transcripts of earnings communication conferences (ECCs) of Chinese listed firms, we document that increased competition from potential entrants significantly enhances R&D disclosure transparency. This effect is more pronounced among firms that are financially constrained, have stronger incentives to deter new entrants, and face lower proprietary costs. Further analysis shows that greater R&D disclosure transparency is associated with lower financing costs for disclosing firms and reduced R&D activity among their industry peers. Overall, our findings suggest that firms strategically enhance R&D disclosure transparency in response to competitive threats from potential market entrants, balancing the benefits of reduced financing costs and entry deterrence against the potential risks of revealing proprietary information.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100487"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144331376","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 private securities litigation reform act and post-earnings announcement drift","authors":"Benjamin Angelo","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100495","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100495","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act protects firms against litigation stemming from forward-looking statements. This paper considers whether these protections contribute to post-earnings announcement drift. The results did not suggest that the inherent uncertainty of forward-looking statements contributes to a delayed price reaction. However, the results provide evidence that backward-looking statements are associated with a delayed price response. This result is consistent with <span><span>Bernard and Thomas (1990)</span></span> suggestion that post-earnings announcement drift is caused by investors not fully understanding how current earnings map into future earnings. Overall, the results suggests that the PSLRA does not contribute to post-earnings announcement drift. Further, the results have practical implications for firms. Managers should focus their prepared remarks on the prior performance of the firm and focus their responses during the question-and-answer session on the future performance of the firm.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100495"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144665805","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}
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":"2025-12-01","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":"Does key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure affect corporate financialization?","authors":"Yan Zhao, Kun Su, Yiming Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100491","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2025.100491","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper aims to clarify the relationship between key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure and corporate financialization. The findings reveal that key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure can provide incremental information value, thereby impeding corporate financialization in China. Moreover, this effect is more pronounced in the samples with low media attention, low institutional investor holdings, and non-state-owned enterprises. Further research indicates that reducing managerial myopia and easing financing constraints serve as key channels through which key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure affects corporate financialization. In addition, the future financialization analysis suggests that key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure has a sustained deterrent effect on financialization rather than just a short-term signaling mechanism. This study provides empirical evidence on efficiently preventing excessive financialization of enterprises, as well as some insights for mitigating systemic financial risks from the key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure perspective.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"21 3","pages":"Article 100491"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144579330","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}