CEO Age and Financial Reporting Quality

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 725-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua-Wei Huang ◽  
Ena Rose-Green ◽  
Chih-Chen Lee

SYNOPSIS: This study examines the association between chief executive officer (CEO) age and the financial reporting quality of firms. The financial reporting qualities examined are the meeting or beating of analyst earnings forecasts and financial restatements. Based on extant research, we hypothesize that older CEOs are associated with higher-quality financial reporting. Using a sample of 3,413 firms for the period 2005 to 2008, we find a positive association between CEO age and financial reporting quality. Specifically, we find that CEO age is negatively associated with firms meeting or beating analyst earnings forecasts and financial restatements. Our study therefore extends the corporate governance and financial reporting quality literature by identifying CEO age as a determinant of financial reporting quality. Data Availability: Data are publicly available.

2014 ◽  
Vol 89 (6) ◽  
pp. 2115-2149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Czerney ◽  
Jaime J. Schmidt ◽  
Anne M. Thompson

ABSTRACT According to auditing standards, explanatory language added at the auditor's discretion to unqualified audit reports should not indicate increased financial misstatement risk. However, an auditor is unlikely to add language that would strain the auditor-client relationship absent concerns about the client's financial statements. Using a sample of 30,825 financial statements issued with unqualified audit opinions during 2000–2009, we find that financial statements with audit reports containing explanatory language are significantly more likely to be subsequently restated than financial statements without such language. We find that this positive association is driven by language that references the division of responsibility for performance of the audit, adoption of new accounting principles, and previous restatements. In addition, we find that (1) “emphasis of matter” language that discusses mergers, related-party transactions, and management's use of estimates predicts restatements related to these matters, and that (2) the financial statement accounts noted in the explanatory language typically correspond to the accounts subsequently restated. In sum, our results suggest that present-day audit reports communicate some information about financial reporting quality.


Author(s):  
Ahsan Habib ◽  
Haiyan Jiang ◽  
Donghua Zhou

This paper investigates the association between related-party transactions (RPTs) and stock price crash risk in China. Our investigation is motivated by the controversy in the RPT literature over whether RPTs are value enhancing or opportunistic. Through the lens of stock price crash risk, we reveal that RPTs may violate the arm’s-length assumption of regular market-based transactions, impairing the representational faithfulness and verifiability of accounting data and, consequently, increasing the risk of future price crash. Importantly, we find that this detrimental economic consequence of RPTs is driven by abnormal RPTs that are opportunistic in nature. Our analyses also extend to operating RPTs, related-party loans, and two types of opportunistic RPTs: tunneling and propping. The positive association between RPTs and stock price crash risk is not mediated by financial reporting quality, suggesting that the risk factors associated with RPTs are operational. Our main results remain robust to a series of tests done to address the potential endogeneity between RPTs and stock price crash risk.


2011 ◽  
Vol 86 (6) ◽  
pp. 2099-2130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayanthi Krishnan ◽  
Yuan Wen ◽  
Wanli Zhao

ABSTRACT Recent trends in corporate board composition indicate an increase in the appointment of directors with legal expertise. Using two financial reporting quality measures, accruals quality and discretionary accruals, we find—for a sample of Russell 1000 firms in 2003 and 2005—that the presence (and proportion) of directors with legal backgrounds on the audit committee is associated with higher financial reporting quality. These results obtain after controlling for accounting expertise on audit committees. Also, supplementary tests indicate a positive association between changes in legal expertise and changes in financial reporting quality, suggesting that legal expertise serves as a monitor rather than as a signal of financial reporting quality. Further, the two forms of expertise interact —i.e., the presence of directors with both forms of expertise enhances financial reporting quality, beyond the contribution of the individual forms of expertise. Additional tests suggest that the positive effects of legal expertise are greater in the post-SOX period compared with a pre-SOX year.


2012 ◽  
Vol 87 (6) ◽  
pp. 2061-2094 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeong-Bon Kim ◽  
Xiaohong Liu ◽  
Liu Zheng

ABSTRACT: This study examines the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on audit fees. We first build an analytical audit fee model to analyze the impact on audit fees for the change in both audit complexity and financial reporting quality brought about by IFRS adoption. We then test the model's predictions using audit fee data from European Union countries that mandated IFRS adoption in 2005. We find that mandatory IFRS adoption has led to an increase in audit fees. We also find that the IFRS-related audit fee premium increases with the increase in audit complexity brought about by IFRS adoption, and decreases with the improvement in financial reporting quality arising from IFRS adoption. Finally, we find some evidence that the IFRS-related audit fee premium is lower in countries with stronger legal regimes. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. Data availability: Data are available from public sources identified in the paper.


2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Hanlon ◽  
Jeffrey L. Hoopes ◽  
Nemit Shroff

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the relation between tax enforcement and financial reporting quality. The government, due to its tax claim on firm profits, is de facto the largest minority shareholder in almost all corporations. Therefore, the government, like other shareholders, has an interest in the accurate reporting of (taxable) income and preventing insiders from siphoning corporate funds to obtain private benefits. We hypothesize and find evidence that higher tax enforcement by the tax authority has a positive association with financial reporting quality. Further, we find that this association is generally stronger when other monitoring mechanisms are weaker. Our evidence is consistent with the predictions from the Desai, Dyck, and Zingales (2007) theory that the tax authority provides a monitoring mechanism of corporate insiders. Our paper also adds to the literature on the determinants of financial reporting quality and how the relation between accounting standards and reporting outcomes depends on country-level institutions. JEL Classifications: G3, H25, H26, K34, M40.


2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce K. Behn ◽  
Jong-Hag Choi ◽  
Tony Kang

Under the assumption that audit quality relates positively to unobservable financial reporting quality, we investigate whether audit quality is associated with the predictability of accounting earnings by focusing on analyst earnings forecast properties. The evidence shows that analysts' earnings forecast accuracy is higher and the forecast dispersion is smaller for firms audited by a Big 5 auditor. We further find that auditor industry specialization is associated with higher forecast accuracy and less forecast dispersion in the non-Big 5 auditor sample but not in the Big 5 auditor sample. Overall, our results suggest that high-quality audit provided by Big 5 auditors and industry specialist non-Big 5 auditors is associated with better forecasting performance by analysts.


2013 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 1007-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Santhosh Ramalingegowda ◽  
Chuan-San Wang ◽  
Yong Yu

ABSTRACT Miller and Modigliani's (1961) dividend irrelevance theorem predicts that in perfect capital markets dividend policy should not affect investment decisions. Yet in imperfect markets, external funding constraints that stem from information asymmetry can force firms to forgo valuable investment projects in order to pay dividends. We find that high-quality financial reporting significantly mitigates the negative effect of dividends on investments, especially on R&D investments. Further, this mitigating role of financial reporting quality is particularly important among firms with a larger portion of firm value attributable to growth options. In addition, we show that the mitigating role of high-quality financial reporting is more pronounced among firms that have decreased dividends than among firms that have increased dividends. These results highlight the important role of financial reporting quality in mitigating the conflict between firms' investment and dividend decisions and thereby reducing the likelihood that firms forgo valuable investment projects in order to pay dividends. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources identified in the paper.


Author(s):  
Andrea Rey ◽  
Giovanni Landi

This paper aims to assess whether financial reporting quality affect the access of Italian Non-SME firms to financial debt. In order to measure the financial reporting quality, we assume as proxy the accrual quality. We carried out a regression analysis, using financial statement data of firms sampled. The results reveal a positive association between financial reporting quality and the access to bank and financial institution debt. In addition, our findings also show no association between financial debt maturity and the accounting quality of firms.


2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivek Mande ◽  
Myungsoo Son

SUMMARY: This paper examines whether financial restatements are associated with subsequent auditor changes. A financial restatement represents a breakdown in a company's financial reporting, but, importantly, also of its audit. We argue that in response to pressure from capital markets, restating firms will dismiss their auditors to increase audit quality and restore reputational capital lost when the restatements are announced to the investing public. Using a large sample of restatements and auditor changes we find that, consistent with our hypothesis, the likelihood of auditor-client realignments increases after firms announce restatements. As expected, we also find that the positive association between restatements and auditor turnovers is more pronounced when restatements are more severe and the quality of corporate governance is high. Finally, we find that stock market returns surrounding auditor changes increase as the severity of restatements increases. The last result supports the idea that stock markets have a positive view of auditor changes following restatements. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from sources identified in the paper.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-281
Author(s):  
Zabihollah Rezaee ◽  
Kaveh Asiaei ◽  
Toktam Safdel Delooie

Este estudio examina si la experiencia del director general (CEO) y los conocimientos financieros afectan a las reformulaciones financieras (FR), y cómo lo hacen, investigando una muestra de empresas iraníes que cotizan en bolsa entre 2008 y 2017. Definimos a los consejeros delegados con experiencia como aquellos que son contratados desde dentro de la empresa y a los consejeros delegados expertos en finanzas como aquellos que poseen una cualificación contable o tienen experiencia laboral como auditor, director financiero (CFO), controlador u otros puestos relacionados con la contabilidad. Encontramos que FR está positivamente asociado a los CEOs con información privilegiada (CEOs con más experiencia interna), y negativamente asociado a la experiencia financiera del CEO. Además, encontramos que la experiencia del CEO se asocia negativamente con FR cuando el CEO es un experto financiero. Este resultado pone de manifiesto la importancia de la experiencia financiera de los altos ejecutivos. Además, nuestros resultados muestran que los directores generales con información privilegiada pueden mejorar la calidad de la información financiera reduciendo FR cuando tienen mayor poder de decisión. Este estudio contribuye a la literatura sobre las características de los directores generales y la información financiera. Los resultados ofrecen importantes implicaciones para los responsables políticos y los consejos de administración de las economías emergentes en lo que respecta a la exigencia de nombrar a altos directivos con conocimientos financieros. This study examines whether and how Chief Executive Officer (CEO) experience and financial expertise affect financial restatements (FR) by investigating a sample of Iranian listed companies from 2008 to 2017. We define experienced CEOs as those who are hired from inside the firm and financial expert CEOs as those who hold an accounting qualification or have work experience as an auditor, chief financial officer (CFO), controller, and or other accounting-related positions. We find that FR is positively associated with insider CEOs (CEOs with more internal experience), and negatively associated with CEO financial expertise. Moreover, we find that CEO experience is negatively associated with FR when the CEO is a financial expert. This result highlights the importance of financial background for senior executives. Further, our results show that insider CEOs can improve the financial reporting quality through reducing FR when they have higher decision-making power. This study contributes to the literature on CEO characteristics and financial reporting. The results provide important implications for policymakers and the board of directors in emerging economies regarding the requirement to appoint top managers with financial expertise.


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