The Signaling Role of Accounting Conservatism in Debt Contracting

Author(s):  
Ying-Ju Chen ◽  
Mingcherng Deng
2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Kang ◽  
Gerald J. Lobo ◽  
Michael C. Wolfe

Previous research shows that accounting conservatism facilitates debt contracting. Extending this line of literature, we examine whether the role of accounting conservatism in accessing external debt to attain firm growth varies with its maturity. We find evidence of a positive relationship between conservatism and debt maturity. We also observe a positive relationship between conservative accounting and future growth funded by all classes of debt, but this relation is due to long-term rather than short-term debt, which is less prone to agency risk. Furthermore, the associations between conservatism and debt maturity and conservatism and growth financed by long-term debt are mostly observed for firms with fewer anti-takeover provisions in place. These findings suggest that the demand for accounting conservatism is not uniform across different debt maturity horizons.


2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahsan Habib ◽  
Mahmud Hossain

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of reporting conservatism on firm’s capital structure decisions and the role of environmental uncertainty as a moderating variable. While the role of conservatism has been investigated in certain debt-contracting setting, evidence is sparse about the effect of conservatism on the degree of financial leverage. We examine this issue using a sample of Australian firms from 1992 to 2005. We find that accounting conservatism positively affect a firm’s leverage structure. Further, we find that the relation between accounting conservatism and firm leverage is moderated by environmental uncertainty context; however this finding is not robust to all three proxies that we used to measure conservatism.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hye Seung (Grace) Lee ◽  
Xu Li ◽  
Heibatollah Sami

SYNOPSIS In this study, we examine the impact of conditional conservatism on audit fees and, more importantly, the influence of corporate governance on this relationship. Prior literature presents evidence regarding explanations for the existence and pervasiveness of accounting conservatism such as compensation and debt contracting, shareholder litigation, taxation, and accounting regulation. However, there is very limited evidence or discussion of the potential benefit of accounting conservatism on audit risk and thus audit fees, and how the potential benefit can be attenuated by corporate governance quality. Using a sample of firm-year observations over the period of 2004–2009, we provide evidence consistent with conditional conservatism and firms' commitment to such conservatism reducing their audit fees. However, our evidence shows that this reduction in audit fees is moderated by higher corporate governance quality. These results have implications for auditors, regulators, standard setters, and firms' managers. In addition, our study extends the literature on the determinants of audit fees. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; D81; D22.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Alfiah Dinanar Hati

This paper examine several factor that impact to accounting conservatism practice. Conservatism is commonly defined as the differential verifiability required for recognition of profits versus losses. Regardless of the different opinion about role of accounting conservatism, in fact, this principle is still in uses until now and be one of the dominant principle in accounting. Through this article the author do review of several previous studies about accounting conservatism at Indonesia and other country. From several review we conclude that accounting conservatism is affected by factors of contracting, litigation risk, political costs, regulations, financial distress and conflict of interest between shareholders and bondholders.


Author(s):  
Nur Fatwa Basar ◽  
Andi Hendro

The purpose of this study was to analyze the direct effect of political cost and debt covenant on accounting conservatism. Besides, this study also analyzes the role of debt covenants as a moderator between the effect of political cost on accounting conservatism. The companies that are the samples are companies indexed on the IDX30 other than financial services companies and companies with non-rupiah financial reports. the data used is secondary data from the financial statements of 20 companies listed on the Indonesian stock exchange. data analysis using multiple linear regression and analysis of variance. The results showed that political cost directly affects accounting conservatism positively and significantly. whereas debt covenant does not have a direct significant effect on accounting conservatism. Besides, this study shows the role of debt covenants in strengthening the effect of political costs on accounting conservatism.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 1223-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jungeun Cho ◽  
Won-Wook Choi

This study examines the effectiveness of accounting conservatism in monitoring and controlling managers’ decision-making regarding opportunistic investment. We find that accounting conservatism is negatively associated with over-investment. This suggests that conservative accounting policies serve as an efficient monitoring and controlling mechanism for opportunistic investment decisions. We also find a stronger negative association between accounting conservatism and over-investment in firms with low managerial ownership and low ownership by foreign investors. The results of our analysis imply that the impact of timely loss recognition on over-investment is more significant in firms with high agency problems and weaker monitoring ability, and that this factor complements other governance mechanisms, thereby helping to control managers’ myopic investment decisions. We provide evidence for a role of financial disclosure in mitigating managers’ opportunistic over-investment decisions. Though managers’ over-investment decisions are motivated by private gain, which reduces firm performance and compromises investors’ welfare, limited research exists on the role of financial information in alleviating such behavior. We suggest that timely loss recognition in financial statements can serve as an effective monitoring mechanism to aid in control of managers’ myopic over-investment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter F. Chen ◽  
Shaohua He ◽  
Zhiming Ma ◽  
Derrald Stice

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