Voluntary Disclosure of Strategic Operating Information and the Accuracy of Analysts' Earnings Forecasts

Author(s):  
Sidney Leung
2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (5) ◽  
pp. 247-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel F. Houston ◽  
Chen Lin ◽  
Sibo Liu ◽  
Lai Wei

ABSTRACT This paper documents that changes in litigation risk affect corporate voluntary disclosure practices. We make causal inferences by exploiting three legal events that generate exogenous variations in firms' litigation risk. Using a matching-based fixed-effect difference-in-differences design, we find that the treated firms tend to make fewer (more) management earnings forecasts relative to the control firms when they expect litigation risk to be lower (higher) following the legal event. The results are concentrated on the earnings forecasts conveying negative news and are robust to alternative specifications, samples, and outcome variables. JEL Classifications: D80; G14; K22; K41; M41.


2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ettredge ◽  
Ying Huang ◽  
Weining Zhang

SYNOPSIS We examine the impact of financial restatements on managers' subsequent earnings forecasts. We argue that restatements create conflicting incentives. One incentive is to repair manager reputations as information providers by providing more and better guidance via earnings forecasts. The opposing incentive is to avoid risk by reducing the information in forecasts. We find that compared to control firms, restatement companies exhibit a decreased propensity to issue quarterly earnings forecasts following restatements. Those that do make forecasts issue fewer forecasts in post-restatement periods. We also find that post-restatement forecasts are less precise, and are less optimistically biased. Overall, our results suggest that, rather than increasing voluntary disclosure in the form of forecasts, managers of restatement companies exhibit risk-averting forecasting behavior following restatements.


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 623-636
Author(s):  
Hyunmin Oh ◽  
Sambock Park ◽  
Heungjoo Jeon

We provide the effects of voluntary disclosure of the schedule of manufacturing cost on analysts’ earnings forecasts. We set up and analyze the disclosure of the schedule of manufacturing cost as a proxy for voluntary disclosure. Specifically, we examine the associations between voluntary disclosure of it and the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts and bias in earnings forecasts. The results of our study are as follows. First, the relationship between voluntary disclosure of the schedule of manufacturing cost and the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts is significant in the positive (+) direction. This means that the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts is higher in the case of the firms that voluntarily disclosed the schedule of manufacturing cost, as compared to other firms. Second, the relationship between voluntary disclosure of the schedule of manufacturing cost and analysts’ bias in earnings forecasts is significant in the negative (-) direction. This means that analysts underestimate earnings in the case of the firms that voluntarily disclose the schedule of manufacturing cost, as compared to other firms. Since the schedule of manufacturing cost is still an interesting item and useful information in the capital market, the results of our study provide important implications not only to managers, but also to investors and supervisory authority. Limitations of our study include the fact that not all diverse variables that affect voluntary disclosure and analysts’ forecasts are considered. 


2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1803
Author(s):  
Xinyi Lu

This paper examines the relationship between the regional variation in social capital in the United States and the propensity and properties of the management earnings forecasts. Social capital refers to connections among individualssocial networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them (Putnam 2000). Using a comprehensive sample of companies in the United States, we find that firms located in region with higher social capital are more likely to issue a management earnings forecast and are inclined to forecast more frequently. In addition, earnings forecasts made by those firms tend to be more specific. Our findings suggest that mangers of firms in the high social capital regions are more likely to be concerned about their reputation of providing transparent information regarding their businesses because of the close connections among individuals and the greater propensities to honor obligations. This study contributes to the accounting literature by identifying a non-financial factor (i.e., social capital) that affects managements voluntary disclosure practices.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaqi Shi ◽  
Jeong-Bon Kim ◽  
Michel L. Magnan

ABSTRACT Building on the bonding hypothesis, this paper examines the economic consequences of voluntary management earnings forecasts (MFs) made by foreign firms cross-listed in the U.S. market. Our work reveals the following. First, cross-listed firms that voluntarily issue MFs exhibit higher firm valuation (Tobin's Q) than those that do not issue MFs, with forecast precision and frequency further enhancing valuation premiums. Additionally, the valuation premium of MFs is more pronounced for cross-listed firms than for a matched sample of U.S. domestic firms. Second, cross-listed firms from countries with weaker legal regimes are valued more for their voluntary forecasts relative to those from stronger legal regimes. Third, further sensitivity analyses suggest that valuation implications from MFs are more consistent with reputational bonding than with a signaling perspective. Finally, our mediation analysis suggests that voluntary disclosures of MFs are an important channel through which the information environment positively influences firm valuation. Overall, our study contributes to both the voluntary disclosure and cross-listing literatures. JEL Classifications: G14; G15; G32; G34; M41.


2018 ◽  
Vol 93 (6) ◽  
pp. 95-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Shun Cao ◽  
Guang Ma ◽  
Jennifer Wu Tucker ◽  
Chi Wan

ABSTRACT We introduce a firm-specific measure of the technological aspect of competition—technological peer pressure—and examine firm-initiated product development-related press releases. We argue that empirical examinations of the theorized negative relation between competition and disclosure require the type of voluntary disclosure to be relevant to the dimension of competition under examination to ensure that firms incur significant proprietary costs of disclosure. In other words, many types of disclosure do not provide actionable information to competitors and, thus, should not be affected by that dimension of competition. We expect a negative relation between technological peer pressure and product disclosure because the latter reveals firms' strategies, allocations, and progress of technological investments in product development to competitors. In contrast, we do not expect a negative relation between technological peer pressure and management earnings forecasts—the most common type of voluntary disclosure used in accounting research. Our test results are consistent with these expectations. Data Availability: All data are available from public sources. Our TPP Measure is available for download, please see the link in Appendix G.


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