ABSTRACT This paper provides a new approach to test for accrual‐based earnings management. Our approach exploits the inherent property of accrual accounting that any accrual‐based earnings management in one period must reverse in another period. If the researcher has priors concerning the timing of the reversal, incorporating these priors can significantly improve the power and specification of tests for earnings management. Our results indicate that tests incorporating reversals increase test power by around 40% and provide a robust solution for mitigating model misspecification arising from correlated omitted variables.

PATRICIA M. DECHOW

AMY P. HUTTON

JUNG HOON KIM

RICHARD G. SLOAN

Journal of Accounting Research

Detecting Earnings Management: A New Approach

检测盈余管理：一种新方法

ABSTRACT This paper reports the results of a field experiment investigating how attributes of carbon footprint information affect consumer choice in a large dining facility. Our hypotheses and research methods were preregistered via the Journal of Accounting Research ’s registration‐based editorial process. Manipulating the measurement units and visualizations of carbon footprint information on food labels, we quantify effects on consumers’ food choices. Treated consumers choose less carbon‐intensive dishes, reducing their food‐related carbon footprint by up to 9.2%, depending on the treatment. Effects are strongest for carbon footprint information expressed in monetary units (“environmental costs”) and color‐coded in the familiar traffic‐light scheme. A postexperimental survey shows that these effects obtain although few respondents self‐report concern for the environmental footprint of their meal choices. Our study contributes to the accounting literature by using an information‐processing framework to shed light on the information usage and decision‐making processes of an increasingly important user group of accounting information: consumers.

BIANCA BEYER

RICO CHASKEL

SIMONE EULER

JOACHIM GASSEN

ANN‐KRISTIN GROßKOPF

THORSTEN SELLHORN

J of Accounting Research

How Does Carbon Footprint Information Affect Consumer Choice? A Field Experiment

碳足迹信息如何影响消费者选择？一项实地实验

We examine the relation between firm‐level transparency, stock market liquidity, and valuation across countries, focusing on whether the relation varies with a firm's characteristics and economic environment. We document lower transaction costs and greater liquidity (as measured by lower bid‐ask spreads and fewer zero‐return days) for firms with greater transparency (as measured by less evidence of earnings management, better accounting standards, higher quality auditors, more analyst following, and more accurate analyst forecasts). The relation between transparency and liquidity is more pronounced in periods of high volatility, when investor protection, disclosure requirements, and media penetration are poor, and when ownership is more concentrated, suggesting that firm‐level transparency matters more when overall investor uncertainty is greater. Increased liquidity is associated with lower implied cost of capital and with higher valuation as measured by Tobin'sQ. Finally, a mediation analysis suggests that liquidity is a significant channel through which transparency affects firm valuation and equity cost of capital.

MARK LANG

KARL V. LINS

MARK MAFFETT

Transparency, Liquidity, and Valuation: International Evidence on When Transparency Matters Most

透明度、流动性和估值：国际证据揭示透明度何时最为重要

Connected financial journalists—those with working relationships, common school ties, or social media connections to company management—introduce a marked media slant into their news coverage. Using a comprehensive set of newspaper articles covering mergers and acquisition (M&A) transactions from 1997 to 2016, I find that connected journalists use significantly fewer negative words in their coverage of connected acquirers. These journalists are also more likely to quote connected executives and include less accurate language in their reporting. Moreover, they tend to portray other firms in the same network in a less negative light. Journalists’ favoritism bias has implications for both capital market outcomes and their careers. I find that acquirers whose M&As are covered by connected journalists receive significantly higher stock returns on the news article publication date. However, these acquirers’ stock prices reverse in the long term, suggesting market overreaction to news covered by connected journalists. Around M&A transactions, connected articles are correlated with increased bid competition and deal premiums. In terms of future career development, connected journalists are more likely to leave journalism and join their associated industries in the long run. Taken together, the evidence suggests that financial journalists’ personal networks promote news bias that potentially hinders the efficient dissemination of information.

GUOSONG XU

News Bias in Financial Journalists’ Social Networks

金融记者社交网络中的新闻偏见

We find that foreign‐born CEOs are more inclined than domestic‐born ones to acquire across borders, and that this inclination is explained by their preference for targets in their birth country. This preference is motivated by foreign‐born CEOs’ information advantage in their birth country and by these CEOs’ desire to give back to the birth country. CEOs’ desire to help their birth country also influences target location, increasing the likelihood of a target in countries that colonized the CEO birth country. The motives that drive acquisitions in acquirer CEOs’ birth countries measurably affect the returns of acquirers’ shareholders, target premium, and acquisition synergy. Both acquirers’ returns and synergy but not target premium are abnormally positive when the motive for an acquisition is a CEO's information advantage in the birth country. Targets premiums but not acquirers’ returns and synergy are abnormally positive when the motive for an acquisition is the desire to give back to the CEO's birth country.

ANTONIO MARRA

ANGELA PETTINICCHIO

RON SHALEV

Home Sweet Home: CEOs Acquiring Firms in Their Birth Countries

家是甜蜜的家：CEO收购其出生国的公司

ABSTRACT Visionary CEOs have strong beliefs about the right course of action for their firms. How should a board of directors that does not necessarily share the visionary CEO's confidence advise and monitor the CEO? We consider a model in which the board can acquire costly information about the firm's optimal strategic direction. The board not only advises the CEO on strategy, but also must approve it, and the CEO exerts effort to implement the strategy. We find that the board gathers less information when the CEO believes more strongly in his vision. Further, depending on the strength of the CEO's belief bias, the board either plays an advisory role, a monitoring role, or a rubberstamping role. The model predicts that in firms that are led by highly visionary CEOs, boards are passive in that they acquire little information and rubberstamp the visionary's proposal. Nevertheless, shareholders prefer the visionary over an unbiased manager in industries in which obtaining information about the correct course of action is difficult and costly.

XU JIANG

VOLKER LAUX

What Role Do Boards Play in Companies with Visionary CEOs?

远见卓识的CEO领导下的公司董事会扮演何种角色？

ABSTRACT Interest in sustainability information, from investors, managers, researchers, and others, has been expanding rapidly. We discuss recent advances and open questions related to sustainability reporting and disclosure through the lens of a supply and demand framework. Our discussion builds on prior research on financial reporting and highlights unique aspects of the provision of sustainability information.

HENRY L. FRIEDMAN

GAIZKA ORMAZABAL

The Role of Information in Building a More Sustainable Economy: A Supply and Demand Perspective

信息在构建更可持续经济中的作用：供需视角

ABSTRACT We study whether federal judges’ personal exposure to financial fraud affects their professional behavior, in the form of sentencing outcomes in white‐collar cases. Following the methodology outlined in our registered report, we construct a novel measure of financial fraud exposure based on judges’ direct shareholdings in firms that commit financial fraud. Using this measure, we exploit the random assignment of cases to judges to examine whether judges exposed to fraud in one firm are (1) less likely to rule in favor of defendants in white‐collar cases involving other firms and (2) less likely to grant favorable pretrial motions to defendants. We find minimal evidence in support of either (1) or (2), concluding that for all but the most serious frauds, judges are unlikely to let their personal victimhood experience affect their professional sentencing behavior with respect to related cases. Our study broadens our understanding of the spillover effects of financial fraud enforcement and contributes to the literature on how judges’ personal experiences can shape judicial decision‐making.

TRUNG NGUYEN

ANEESH RAGHUNANDAN

ALEXANDRA SCHERF

How Does Judges’ Personal Exposure to Financial Fraud Affect White‐Collar Sentencing?

法官个人经历金融欺诈如何影响白领量刑？

Abstract Patent applications often reveal proprietary information to competitors, but does such disclosure harm firms or also benefit them? We develop and empirically support a theory showing that when firms patent enhancements to incumbent, nondisruptive technologies, they can cooperate more easily on these technologies, increasing their profitability. The downside of cooperating on nondisruptive technologies is that the investment in and commitment to disruptive technologies decline. To improve their commitment to disruptive technologies, some firms rely more on trade secrecy. We provide empirical support for these predictions. We document that after a patent reform that made information about patent applications widely accessible, firms cooperate more and charge higher markups. Furthermore, the nature of patented innovation has changed, with the proportion of nondisruptive patents increasing substantially. Finally, while some firms start patenting more, others patent less and rely more on trade secrecy, with the response depending on the attractiveness of firms' innovation prospects.

ARNOUD BOOT

VLADIMIR VLADIMIROV

Disclosure, Patenting, and Trade Secrecy

披露、专利与商业秘密

ABSTRACT This paper studies whether firms opportunistically make proprietary claims in mandatory environmental disclosure programs with trade secret exemption rules. Examining the mandatory chemical disclosure program in the fracking industry, I find evidence of opportunistic withholding of information among operators that are less likely to have trade secrets. Specifically, I find that these operators claim fewer chemicals as trade secrets when the operating site is in close proximity to water quality monitors. This is only observed among publicly traded operators that face a higher cost of societal backlash when disclosing pollutant information. Further analyses suggest that these operators are concerned about external environmental monitoring, which deters them from opportunistic information withholding. Regarding public and private operators that are more likely to have trade secrets, I do not find strong evidence that their information withholding varies with the monitoring conditions.

YILE (ANSON) JIANG

Comply or Explain: Do Firms Opportunistically Claim Trade Secrets in Mandatory Environmental Disclosure Programs?

遵守或解释：企业在强制性环境披露计划中是否投机性地声称商业秘密？

The Journal of Accounting Research is a general-interest accounting journal.  It publishes original research in all areas of accounting and related fields that utilizes tools from basic disciplines such as economics, statistics, psychology, and sociology.  This research typically uses analytical, empirical archival, experimental, and field study methods and addresses economic questions, external and internal, in accounting, auditing, disclosure, financial reporting, taxation, and information as well as related fields such as corporate finance, investments, capital markets, law, contracting, and information economics.

The Journal of Accounting Research is a general-interest accounting journal that publishes original research across all areas of accounting and related fields. This research employs tools from basic disciplines such as economics, statistics, psychology, and sociology. It typically utilizes analytical, empirical archival, experimental, and field study methods to address economic questions in accounting, auditing, disclosure, financial reporting, taxation, and related fields such as corporate finance, investments, capital markets, law, contracting, and information economics.

《Journal of Accounting Research》是一本综合性会计期刊，致力于发表各个领域的原创研究，涵盖会计及相关领域。该期刊的研究通常运用经济学、统计学、心理学和社会学等基础学科的工具，采用分析性、实证归档、实验和实地研究等方法，探讨会计、审计、信息披露、财务报告、税务等领域的经济问题，以及与企业财务、投资、资本市场、法律、合同和信息经济学等相关的领域。

期刊	Journal of Accounting Research
ISSN	0021-8456, 1475-679X
h-index	169
Journal Impact	4.85
国际分区	BUSINESS, FINANCE(Q1)
国内分区	管理学(2区)管理学商业财政与金融(1区)