Accounting-Based Regulation: Evidence from Health Insurers and the Affordable Care Act

2020 ◽  
pp. 0000-0000
Author(s):  
Evan M. Eastman ◽  
David L. Eckles ◽  
Andrew Van Buskirk
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Financial Reporting Quality ◽  
Minimum Amount ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
The Affordable Care Act ◽  
Health Insurers

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that insurers spend a minimum amount of their premium revenue on policyholder benefits. The Act specifies enforcement via a combination of insurer self-reporting, government examinations, and payment of policyholder rebates in cases where insurers fail to meet the required spending amount. We find that insurers' reported estimates are consistently overstated in situations where more accurate estimates would have triggered rebate payments; publicly-traded insurers (particularly those exhibiting poor financial reporting quality) exhibit the strongest evidence of strategic over-estimating. In aggregate, we estimate that approximately 14 percent of insurers engage in strategic overestimates, and that insurer overestimates resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in underpaid policyholder rebates. Our study illustrates how a combination of regulatory design choices and lax oversight can weaken the effectiveness of accounting-based regulation and have substantial economic consequences.

scholarly journals Influence of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on Financial Reporting Quality: An Overview of EU Firms Cross-Listed in the USA

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ujkan Bajra ◽  
Rrustem Asllanaj
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Internal Control ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Financial Reporting Quality ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa

Abstract This paper investigate whether compliance with the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) Sect. 302 (financial reporting) and 404 (internal controls) enhances financial reporting quality (FRQ). This study focuses on EU publicly traded companies that are cross-listed in the US markets. Using a novel approach with respect to operationalization of the SOX, the empirical research integrated into this paper advances the understanding of financial reporting quality for both practitioners and policymakers. The study argues that financial reporting quality increased after SOX entered into force but, notably, we find that FRQ improves with compliance with SOX302 but not with SOX404. Examination of the latter relationship at the subsection level also reveals that compliance with certain SOX requirements is not satisfactory. We find that three out of six subsections of SOX302 are directly associated with financial reporting, while subsections (1), (5) and (6) of SOX302 are not related with FRQ, indicating that the management team, albeit not entirely, provides a reliable financial reporting systems. We also find that compliance with some SOX404’s subsections has been relatively low (i.e. subsections (1) and (3) of SOX404)), suggesting that corporations have not established and are not maintaining suitable internal control systems over financial reporting.

Auditor Reverse-Merger Expertise: Evidence from Chinese Reverse-Merger Companies

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 115-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Mao ◽  
Qin Jennifer Yin
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Financial Reporting Quality ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Regulatory Requirements ◽  
Financial Reports ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Reverse Mergers ◽  
Audit Fee ◽  
Reverse Merger

SUMMARY This study investigates if hiring auditors with Chinese reverse-merger expertise affected 182 Chinese companies that executed reverse mergers with U.S. shell companies from 2003 to 2011 to become U.S. publicly traded companies (Chinese reverse-merger companies, or CRM companies). We find that CRM companies that employ CRM-expert auditors pay higher audit fee premiums, and are more likely to up-list to national exchanges, when they are compared to CRM companies with non-CRM-expert auditors. Additional analyses suggest that clients of CRM experts also are more likely to file annual financial reports on time, but CRM-expert auditors are not associated with fewer misstatements in financial reporting or continued trading on national exchanges. This suggests that CRM-specialist auditors help clients navigate regulatory requirements for up-listing, but they do not achieve improved financial reporting quality.

scholarly journals IFRS Adoption and Financial Reporting Quality: A Review of Evidences in Different Jurisdictions

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 93-106
Author(s):  
Habeeb Mohamed Nijam ◽  
Athambawa Jahfer
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Value Relevance ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Financial Reporting Quality ◽  
Book Value ◽  
Financial Reporting Standards ◽  
Ifrs Adoption

Conventional and commonly held wisdom with respect to the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is that they lead to improved financial reporting quality and comparability and thereby favorable economic consequences. There are however contradicting evidences disproving this conventional wisdom or rejecting its gross generalization over the entire jurisdictions harmonizing on IFRS. Driven by this fact, quests for knowledge about the dynamics and contexts that lead to differential effects of IFRS get momentum. In an attempt to explore the insight into the effects of international accounting harmonization by way of IFRS adoption, this paper reviews selected literatures on the consequences of IFRS adoption. This review discusses some empirical evidences that have been reported in various countries that include Europe, USA, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Norway, Greece, Poland, Belgian, France, Italian, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Jordan, China, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Kenya and Nigeria. Our review focuses on the aspects of value relevance, disclosure quality, cost of capital, earning management and financial statement impact due to the IFRS adoption. This review reveals that the economic consequences of IFRS adoption is significantly different though its impact reported to be positive in majority of cases. There are also notable number of studies that report indifferent and or negative effects of IFRS adoption. When IFRS studies report mixed evidence with respect to value relevance of book value of equity and earing, book value of equity supersedes the earning parameters. IFRS are found to supersede many other domestic financial reporting standards in terms of amount and the quality of disclosures in financial statement. This review also obtains that IFRS’s impact on the reduction of cost of capital depends on financial reporting incentives, law enforcement, types of legal systems and various other country-specific and capital market characteristics. Further, though there are some evidences to the contrary, the quality of earnings reported under IFRS has been established to be superior to other local standards.

The Impact of Going Concern on Financial Reporting Quality: Evidence from Vietnam

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phung Anh Thu ◽  
Nguyen Vinh Khuong
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Management ◽  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Financial Distress ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Financial Reporting Quality ◽  
Viet Nam ◽  
Listed Firms ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Debt Covenant

The investigation was conducted to contribute empirical evidence of the association between going concern and financial reporting quality of listed firms on the Vietnam stock market. Based on data from 279 companies listed on the HNX and HOSE exchanges in Vietnam for the period 2009-2015, the quantitative research. Results found that the relationship between the going concern and financial reporting quality of listed firms. Research results are significant for investors, regulators to the transparency of financial reporting information. Keywords Going concern, financial reporting quality, listed firms References Agrawal, K., & Chatterjee, C. (2015). Earnings management and financial distress: Evidence from India. Global Business Review, 16(5_suppl), 140S-154S.Bergstresser, D., & Philippon, T. (2006). CEO incentives and earnings management. Journal of Financial Economics, 80(3), 511–529.Burgstahler, D., & Dichev, I. (1997). Earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 24(1), 99–126.Charitou, A., Lambertides, N., & Trigeorgis, L. (2007a). Earnings behaviour of financially distressed firms: The role of institutional ownership. Abacus, 43(3), 271–296.Chen, Y., Chen, C., & Huang, S. (2010). An appraisal of financially distressed companies’ earnings management: Evidence from listed companies in China. Pacific Accounting Review, 22(1), 22–41Dechow, P., & Dichev, I. (2002). The Quality of Accruals and Earnings: The Role of Accrual Estimation Errors. The Accounting Review, 77, 35-59.DeFond, M., & Jiambalvo, J. (1994). Debt covenant violation and manipulation of accruals. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 17(1), 145–176.DeFond, M.L., & Park, C.W. (1997). Smoothing income in anticipation of future earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 23(2), 115–139.Dichev, I., & Skinner, D. (2004). Large sample evidence on the debt covenant hypothesis. Journal of Accounting Research, 40(4), 1091–1123.Đinh Thị Thu T., Nguyễn Vĩnh K. (2016). Tác động của hành vi điều chỉnh thu nhập đến khả năng hoạt động liên tục trong kế toán: Nghiên cứu thực nghiệm cho các doanh nghiệp niêm yết tại Việt Nam, Tạp chí phát triển khoa học và công nghệ, Quí 3, tr.96-108.Đỗ Thị Vân Trang (2015). Các mô hình đánh giá chất lượng báo cáo tài chính, Tạp chí chứng khoán Việt Nam, 200, tr 18-21.Habib, A., Uddin Bhuiyan, B., & Islam, A. (2013). Financial distress, earnings management and market pricing of accruals during the global financial crisis. Managerial Finance, 39(2), 155-180.Jaggi, B., & Lee, P. (2002). Earnings management response to debt covenant violations and debt restructuring. Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance, 17(4), 295–324.Kasznik, R., (1999). On the association between voluntary disclosure and earnings management. Journal of accounting research, 37(1), pp.57-81.Lu, J. (1999). An empirical study of earnings management by loss-making listed Chinese companies. KuaijiYanjiu (Accounting Research), (9), 25–35.McNichols, M.F. and Stubben, S.R., (2008). Does earnings management affect firms’ investment decisions?. The accounting review, 83(6), pp.1571-1603.Selahudin, N.F., Zakaria, N.B., & Sanusi, Z.M. (2014). Remodelling the earnings management with the appear- ance of leverage, financial distress and free cash flow: Malaysia and Thailand evidences. Journal of Applied Sciences, 14(21), 2644–2661.Skinner, D.J., & Sloan, R. (2002). Earnings surprises, growth expectations, and stock returns or don’t let an earnings torpedo sink your portfolio. Review of Accounting Studies, 7(2/3), 289–312.Sweeney, A.P., (1994). Debt-covenant violations and managers' accounting responses. Journal of Accounting & Economics, 17(3): 281-308.Trần Thị Thùy Linh, Mai Hoàng Hạnh (2015). Chất lượng báo cáo tài chính và kỳ hạn nợ ảnh hưởng đến hiệu quả hoạt động của doanh nghiệp Việt Nam, Tạp chí phát triển kinh tế, 10, tr.27-50.Trương Thị Thùy Dương (2017). Nâng cao chất lượng báo cáo tài chính công ty đại chúng, Tạp chí tài chính, 1(3), tr.55-56.Uwuigbe, Ranti, Bernard, (2015). Assessment of the effects of firm’s characteristics on earnings management of listed firms in Nigeria, Asian Economic and Financial Review,5(2):218-228.

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