Association between restrictive covenants and accounting conservatism: evidence from US public debt

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between restrictive covenants and accounting conservatism. More specially, the authors try to explain how the use of restrictive covenants of public debt may affect accounting conservatism. Design/methodology/approach The sample is composed of non-financial firms and for each firm one debt contract is considered. The authors have used the Ball and Shivakumar (2005) models to test the relationships. All variables were retrieved from Mergent Fixed Investment Securities and COMPUSTAT Databases. Findings The findings of this study show that the more the firm relies on bond covenants, the higher is the degree of conservatism. The authors found also that these firms also exhibited a widely significantly increased level of conservatism in the years following the issuance of debt. Research limitations/implications The results should be interpreted with caution because the use of covenants does not take into consideration the tightness of their inclusion in the public debt contract. Originality/value This paper makes a timely contribution to the debate of timely loss recognition by confirming the complementarity between the inclusion of restrictive covenants in the debt agreement and the accounting conservatism before and after the emission of public debt.

Timely Loss Recognition Helps Nothing

This paper digests the relationship between the manipulation of losses and price reversals in the Chinese stock market. Timely loss recognition is involved in detecting the manipulation of losses, while price reversals are investigated by momentum profit. In addition, two-way sorting momentum portfolios are employed to connect manipulating losses with price reversals. Companies with low timely loss recognition aggressively manipulate their losses, and our results indicate that they generate much more significantly negative momentum profits. As a consequence, they cannot build up any immunity against reversal risks and encounter much higher reversal risks than other companies. Such findings still hold after the risk adjustments using asset pricing models come into play and when controlling for the calendar effect. This research indeed suggests that investors should exercise caution when dealing with companies whose financial information is too positive. Such companies may dress up their financial reports, thereby significantly increasing the risks associated with price reversals.

Asymmetric Timing of Gain and Loss Recognition and Insider Trading Profitability

We provide evidence that the profitability of corporate insiders’ trading decreases in the degree of asymmetric timely loss recognition (TLR) of their firms’ financial reporting. Consistent with TLR reducing insiders’ information advantage over outside shareholders regarding future negative news about the firm, we find that reduced insider trading profitability is mainly driven by (a) stock sales, as opposed to purchases; (b) the price change component of trading, as opposed to its volume; and (c) insiders’ nonroutine trades, as opposed to less information driven routine trades. Although CEOs/CFOs are more likely to influence TLR, the effect is more pronounced for non-CEO and non-CFO insiders, inconsistent with reverse causality. Overall, our findings suggest that TLR reduces managers’ ability to extract rents from investors via insider trading.

Audit Profession Development and Bank Loan Contracting

This study examines the relation between country-level audit profession development (APD) and bank loan contracting around the world. Using a sample of bank loan data from 35 countries, we find that stronger APD is associated with more favorable loan terms, such as lower loan spreads, fewer covenants, and larger loan amounts. These effects are stronger in countries with a weaker rule of law. We also find that stronger APD attracts significantly more lenders participating in loans and more foreign lenders leading loans. A breakdown of APD into three subcategories, namely, auditor education, auditor independence and liability, and auditor oversight, reveals that all three influence various contracting terms. We also provide evidence that stronger APD is associated with a higher degree of timely loss recognition. Collectively, our findings show that APD improves bank loan contracting terms.

Asymmetrically Timely Loss Recognition and the Accrual Anomaly: Evidence From Pakistan’s Non-financial Sectors

An important role of Conditional conservatism is to align the timely expense recognition of revenue generated in terms of losses compared to the profit over negative components of accruals. Accrual anomaly shows asymmetric differential persistence for accruals and cash flows in years of economic gains rather than losses. The aim of this study to determine the asymmetric timely loss recognition and accrual anomaly of the non-financial firms listed at Pakistan Stock exchange (PSX). Top volume non-financial firms listed at PSX were taken for this study over a period of 2011 to 2018. The direct implication of this research on the pattern of pricing of accrual component of earning exhibits positive relationship of excess returns with accruals and stock returns; whereas negative relationship with earnings, market capitalization and indicator variable of profit firms. Overall, research result is consistent with Konstantinidi et al. (2015), the accrual effect on stock return is existent for earnings generated firms, while not apparent for loss firms. This evidence provides relevant information on the aspects of accrual anomaly and its association with the variables of conditional conservatism on the pricing of accrual during the profit years.

Pengaruh Tingkat Implementasi IFRS dan Kualitas Audit Terhadap Pengakuan Kerugian Tepat Waktu

This study aims to examine the impact of IFRS implementation and audit quality which represented by client importance on timely loss recognition.This study uses profitability as control variable. This research was conducted in the manufacture companies except BUMN and financial companies which listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2012-2016. This research study used a quantitative research with secondary data. Population in this research are 151 companies, the sample withdrawal method using purposive sampling technique to obtain the number of samples, are 18 companies with 5 years of observation data as much as 90 data. Research data in the form of annual financial reports that published by BEI or Indonesian Stock. Exchange. The data analysis technique that used is multiple linear analysis with the help of SPSS program ver. 21. Based on the result of testing the hypothesis, showed that the implementation of IFRS have a significant impact on timely loss recognition, audit quality as a independent variableand profitability as a control variable doesn’t show any significant impact on timely loss recognition