{"title":"Strategic Disclosure Incentives in a Multisegment Firm","authors":"Tyler Atanasov","doi":"10.2308/tar-2023-0155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2023-0155","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper presents a unifying model of disclosure in the presence of competitors and supply market reliance to examine the role of multisegment operations on disclosure choice. A firm’s private information can have varying demand implications for its own portfolio of segments and for its competitors’ portfolios of segments. In multisegment firms, cross-firm spillovers of information discourage disclosure whereas cross-segment spillovers encourage disclosure. This suggests multisegment firms with more informationally diverse segments will have more incentives for transparency. Further, in multisegment firms, reliance on an imperfect supply market has less detrimental effects on transparency compared to single-segment firms. Supply market reliance is less detrimental for multisegment firms with a more diverse portfolio of segments. The results suggest that multisegment firms have more incentives for transparency relative to single-segment firms.\u0000 JEL Classifications: L11; L13; M41.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141716240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Classifying Forecasts","authors":"Michael S. Drake, James R. Moon, James D. Warren","doi":"10.2308/tar-2023-0117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2023-0117","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We employ a novel machine learning technique to classify analysts’ forecast revisions into five types based on how the revision weighs publicly available signals. We label these forecast types as quant, sundry, contrarian, herder, and independent forecasts. Our tests reveal that a greater diversity of forecast types within the consensus is associated with increased consensus dispersion and improved consensus accuracy. Additionally, consensus diversity is associated with an improved information environment for firms, as reflected in reduced earnings announcement information asymmetry and volatility, higher earnings response coefficients, and faster price formation. Our study sheds light on how analysts revise their forecasts and documents capital market benefits associated with different analyst forecasting approaches.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141408156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effect of Financial Audits on Governance Practices: Evidence from the Nonprofit Sector","authors":"Raphael Duguay","doi":"10.2308/tar-2022-0525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2022-0525","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 I evaluate the effect of financial statement audits on the governance practices of nonprofit organizations. Using a regression discontinuity design that exploits revenue-based exemption thresholds, I find that financial audits cause organizations to implement governance mechanisms, such as conflict of interest policies, whistleblower policies, and formal approval of the CEO’s compensation by a committee. Consistent with these governance practices curtailing managers’ private benefits, I document reductions in nepotism and CEO-to-employee pay ratio. The results are more pronounced for organizations (1) whose audit is overseen by an audit committee, (2) that already have an independent board, and (3) that face high charity-level demand for oversight. Collectively, these findings shed light on how financial audits shape the governance practices of small, less sophisticated organizations like nonprofits in ways that go beyond financial statements’ direct use in decision-making and contracting.\u0000 JEL Classifications: M42; G34; M48; L31.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141411696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Customers’ Financial Reporting Quality Associated with Suppliers’ Decision to Contract?","authors":"Dharmendra Naidu, Kumari Ranjeeni","doi":"10.2308/tar-2021-0652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2021-0652","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Using a unique hand-collected dataset of purchase obligations, we find that customers’ financial reporting quality is positively associated with future supply contracts, indicating that suppliers are more willing to contract with customers who provide them with better information. Further, the association between customers’ financial reporting quality and future supply contracts is stronger for customers with strong bargaining power, which is consistent with suppliers relying more on financial reports when they have less access to customers’ private information. Collectively, our results suggest that customers’ financial reporting quality plays an important role in influencing suppliers’ decisions to contract with customers for the future supply of goods and services.\u0000 Data Availability: Data for dependent variable are manually collected and data for all other variables are available from public sources cited in the text.\u0000 JEL Classifications: D80; M41.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141403490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Market Access and Retail Investment Performance","authors":"E. dehaan, Andrew Glover","doi":"10.2308/tar-2023-0471","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2023-0471","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We examine the effects of stock market access, and in particular trading hours, on retail investment performance. Using discontinuities around time zone borders, we find that plausibly exogenous decreases in waking trading hours are associated with meaningful increases in retail investors’ capital gains, as reported on tax returns for the U.S. population. Our results indicate that limiting trading hours curbs active retail trading, leading to improvements in portfolio performance. Our findings identify one negative effect of decreasing barriers to entry for retail investors in trading markets.\u0000 JEL Classifications: M41; M48; G40; G51.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141136645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"CEO Overconfidence and Bonus Target Ratcheting","authors":"Sunyoung Kim, Jongwon Park","doi":"10.2308/tar-2020-0461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2020-0461","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines the performance target response to CEO overconfidence. Using unique hand-collected data on the annual bonus targets of Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 1500 firms, we find that boards ratchet targets more aggressively and apply greater ratcheting asymmetry for overconfident CEOs than for non-overconfident CEOs. These findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests. We also provide evidence that the increase in target ratcheting for overconfident CEOs is particularly more pronounced in firms with strong monitoring environments. Collectively, our findings suggest that boards actively consider CEOs’ overconfidence when setting performance targets, providing new insight into the importance of CEOs’ personal traits with respect to the incentive effects of performance target revisions.\u0000 JEL Classification: G34; J33; M52.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141136930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Emission Taxes and Capital Investments: The Role of Tax Incidence","authors":"Martin Jacob, Kira Zerwer","doi":"10.2308/tar-2023-0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2023-0053","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper examines investment responses to emission taxes and the role of tax incidence in passing on tax burdens. Using private firms from Spain and the introduction of an emission tax in 2013 in the Autonomous Community Valenciana, we show that investments decline in response to the emission tax. Importantly, this investment decline does not depend on the level of pollution but on economic factors related to tax incidence. Investments in firms operating in highly competitive markets, firms with low pricing power, and firms with low financial flexibility are the most affected by environmental taxes. We generalize the investment findings using the introduction of carbon taxes in France and Ireland in a stacked difference-in-differences design. Overall, our results indicate that emission taxes affect not only polluters but also other firms and stakeholders such as suppliers, customers, and consumers depending on the relative elasticities of supply and demand.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the sources cited in the text.\u0000 JEL Classifications: H22; H23; H32; G31.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140267856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Bourveau, John D. Kepler, Guoman She, L. Wang
{"title":"Firm Boundaries and Voluntary Disclosure","authors":"Thomas Bourveau, John D. Kepler, Guoman She, L. Wang","doi":"10.2308/tar-2022-0182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2022-0182","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We study how vertical integration shapes firms’ public disclosures. Theory suggests that firms can use public disclosure to coordinate with supply chain partners and predicts a substitution between vertical integration and public disclosure of future strategic plans, since the internalization of production reduces the need to publicly coordinate. Using data on the extent of vertical integration, we find that firms that become more vertically integrated reduce their public disclosures about their product strategies and that the reduction is most pronounced for vertically integrated firms with greater internalization of production and those with the largest informational and strategic frictions along the supply chain.\u0000 JEL Classifications: D83; G14; L14; M41.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139812267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stock Price Reactions to the Information and Bias in Analyst-Expected Returns","authors":"Johnathan A. Loudis","doi":"10.2308/tar-2022-0309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2022-0309","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 I use a novel decomposition to estimate information and bias components from the returns implied by analyst price targets and provide evidence that prices simultaneously under-react to information and over-react to bias. Price reactions to information are permanent, and prices drift in the direction of their initial reaction for up to 12 months. Price reactions to bias are transitory, and prices reverse their initial reaction after about three months. Price reactions are relatively efficient. Approximately 85 percent of the total price reaction to information occurs during price target announcement months. Market participants are able to mostly (but not fully) debias analyst-expected returns before incorporating them into prices, with the announcement-month reaction to bias being relatively weak at about 15 percent of its reaction to information. A trading strategy analysis implies that mispricing induced by bias is only about one-third of that implied by prior research.\u0000 JEL Classifications: G12; G14; G40.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139820510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stock Price Reactions to the Information and Bias in Analyst-Expected Returns","authors":"Johnathan A. Loudis","doi":"10.2308/tar-2022-0309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/tar-2022-0309","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 I use a novel decomposition to estimate information and bias components from the returns implied by analyst price targets and provide evidence that prices simultaneously under-react to information and over-react to bias. Price reactions to information are permanent, and prices drift in the direction of their initial reaction for up to 12 months. Price reactions to bias are transitory, and prices reverse their initial reaction after about three months. Price reactions are relatively efficient. Approximately 85 percent of the total price reaction to information occurs during price target announcement months. Market participants are able to mostly (but not fully) debias analyst-expected returns before incorporating them into prices, with the announcement-month reaction to bias being relatively weak at about 15 percent of its reaction to information. A trading strategy analysis implies that mispricing induced by bias is only about one-third of that implied by prior research.\u0000 JEL Classifications: G12; G14; G40.","PeriodicalId":503285,"journal":{"name":"The Accounting Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139880433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}