scholarly journals Accounting Restatements and the Timeliness of Disclosures

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad A. Badertscher ◽  
Jeffrey J. Burks
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Negligible Effect ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Reliable Information ◽  
Advisory Group ◽  
Quarterly Earnings ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Jel Classifications

SYNOPSIS Regulators are concerned that during the process of restating financial statements, firms fail to provide timely progress updates, and delay earnings announcements and regulatory filings. To reduce these perceived lags in disclosure, an advisory group to the Securities and Exchange Commission recommends more use of catch-up adjustments rather than restatements to correct accounting errors. Some investor groups oppose the recommendations because they fear that preparers will begin to correct important errors through catch-up adjustments, which are less transparent than restatements. We inform this debate by examining (1) the length of disclosure lags around restatements to understand the extent of the problem, and (2) the causes of disclosure lags to evaluate whether the reforms would address the root causes of the lags. We find that lengthy lags are uncommon and appear to be largely unavoidable consequences of fraud investigations. When fraud is a factor, the firm typically takes weeks or months to release restatement details, quarterly earnings, and SEC filings, likely because investigations are necessary to restore the firm's ability to produce reliable information. When fraud is not a factor, the firm typically discloses the restatement's earnings impact within a day of the initial restatement announcement, and delays the quarterly earnings announcement and SEC filing by less than a week. Although fraud is by far the most economically significant cause of lags, we also find that lags increase when a restatement involves multiple, long-standing, or large errors. Finally, we show that the restatements targeted by the reforms tend to have the shortest lags, even among non-fraudulent restatements. Thus, the proposed reforms would have a negligible effect on disclosure timeliness because the targeted restatements tend to have short lags to begin with, and because long lags appear to be caused by inherent constraints on producing reliable information. JEL Classifications: M41, G38. Data Availability: Data are available from sources identified in the paper.

Concurrent Earnings Announcements and Analysts' Information Production

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Driskill ◽  
Marcus P. Kirk ◽  
Jennifer Wu Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
Financial Analysts ◽  
Earnings Forecasts ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Conference Calls ◽  
Stock Recommendations ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Sample Firm ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT We examine whether financial analysts are subject to limited attention. We find that when analysts have another firm in their coverage portfolio announcing earnings on the same day as the sample firm (a “concurrent announcement”), they are less likely to issue timely earnings forecasts for the sample firm's subsequent quarter than analysts without a concurrent announcement. Among the analysts who issue timely earnings forecasts, the thoroughness of their work decreases as their number of concurrent announcements increases. In addition, analysts are more sluggish in providing stock recommendations and less likely to ask questions in earnings conference calls as their number of concurrent announcements increases. Moreover, when analysts face concurrent announcements, they tend to allocate their limited attention to firms that already have rich information environments, leaving behind firms in need of attention. Overall, our evidence suggests that even financial analysts, who serve as information specialists, are subject to limited attention. JEL Classifications: G10; G11; G17; G14. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from the sources identified in the paper.

Firm characteristics associated with concurrent disclosure of GAAP-compliant financial statements with earnings announcements

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas D’Angelo ◽  
Samir El-Gazzar ◽  
Rudolph A. Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Voluntary Disclosure ◽  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
Balance Sheet ◽  
Control Sample ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Cash Flows ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quarterly Earnings ◽  
Earnings Releases

Purpose This paper aims to examine the characteristics of firms that voluntary disclose generally accepted accounting principals (GAAP)-compliant statements of income, statement of cash flows (SCF) and balance sheet (BS) concurrently with quarterly earnings releases. Cardinal motivation of the paper stems from the increasing demand over the past decade by professional analysts and the Securities and Exchange Commission for concurrent disclosure of GAAP-compliant financial statements with earnings’ announcements. Design/methodology/approach Using hand-collected archival data, a random sample was identified as disclosing GAAP-compliant SCF and BS with their quarterly earnings releases compared to a control sample identified as non-GAAP-compliant disclosing firms during the 36-month period of 2009-2011, and several hypotheses are tested to determine managements’ incentives to disclose GAAP-compliant versus non-GAAP financials with their earnings releases. Findings The results in this paper suggest that debt financing, corporate governance, operating performance, earnings volatility, industry membership (such as technology and more research and development-intensive) and complexity of operations (number of segments) are significant characteristics of firms electing to concurrently disclose GAAP-compliant SCF and BS with earnings releases. Practical implications The findings discussed in this paper are of special interest to financial reporting policymakers, financial analysts, firm managers and stakeholders and academics. Originality/value The voluntary disclosure literature on quarterly earnings releases is extended by differentiating between GAAP-compliant and non-GAAP-compliant voluntary disclosers. The specific findings of this study may provide valuable input to policymakers as they study prevailing voluntary disclosure rules and practices.

Do Auditors Recognize the Potential Dark Side of Executives' Accounting Competence?

2018 ◽  
Vol 93 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Albrecht ◽  
Elaine G. Mauldin ◽  
Nathan J. Newton
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Prior Experience ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Audit Fees ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Audit Fee ◽  
Aggressive Attitude ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT Practice and research recognize the importance of extensive knowledge of accounting and financial reporting experience for generating reliable financial statements. However, we consider the possibility that such knowledge and experience increase the likelihood of material misstatement when executives have incentives to misreport. We use executives' prior experience as an audit manager or partner as a measure of extensive accounting and financial reporting competence. We find that the interaction of this measure and compensation-based incentives increases the likelihood of misstatements. Further, auditors discount the audit fee premium associated with compensation-based incentives when executives have accounting competence. Together, our results suggest that a dark side of accounting competence emerges in the presence of certain incentives, but auditors view accounting competence favorably despite the heightened risk. In further analyses, we demonstrate that executives' aggressive attitude toward reporting exacerbates the effect of accounting competence and compensation-based incentives on misstatements, but not on audit fees. JEL Classifications: M41; M42. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources identified in the text.

Determinants and Consequences of Quantitative Critical Accounting Estimate Disclosures

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (5) ◽  
pp. 189-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Glendening ◽  
Elaine G. Mauldin ◽  
Kenneth W. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Audit Committee ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Reports ◽  
The Public ◽  
Estimation Uncertainty ◽  
Earnings Surprises ◽  
Accounting Expertise ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recommends that firms provide MD&A disclosures quantifying the earnings effect of reasonably likely changes in critical accounting estimates (quantitative CAE). This paper examines the determinants and consequences of quantitative CAE. We find that quantitative CAE are negatively associated with management's incentives to misreport (proxied by portfolio vega) and positively associated with audit committee accounting expertise and with audit offices with multiple quantitative CAE clients. These findings hold for the presence, initiation, number, and magnitude of quantitative CAE, and for both pension and non-pension quantitative CAE. We also find that incidences of AAERs, misstatements, and small positive earnings surprises decrease after initiation of quantitative CAE. Collectively, our findings provide insight into the use of quantitative disclosure to inform users about accounting estimation uncertainty in financial reports. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; M48. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

U.S. Audit Partner Rotations

2016 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Laurion ◽  
Alastair Lawrence ◽  
James P. Ryans
Keyword(s):  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Listed Firms ◽  
Deferred Tax ◽  
Audit Partner Rotation ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT We investigate the effects of audit partner rotation among U.S. publicly listed firms, utilizing the fact that audit partners are periodically copied by name in public correspondence between issuers and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Relative to non-rotation firms, we find no evidence of a change in the frequency of misstatements following the partner rotation; however, there is an increase in the frequency of restatement discoveries and announcements. We also find an increase in deferred tax valuation allowances. Overall, the results provide some evidence suggesting that U.S. partner rotations support a fresh look at the audit engagement. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; M48. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from sources identified in the article.

scholarly journals Disclosure Tone and Shareholder Litigation

2011 ◽  
Vol 86 (6) ◽  
pp. 2155-2183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan L. Rogers ◽  
Andrew Van Buskirk ◽  
Sarah L. C. Zechman
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Litigation Risk ◽  
Shareholder Litigation ◽  
Disclosure Tone ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT We examine the relation between disclosure tone and shareholder litigation to determine whether managers' use of optimistic language increases litigation risk. Using both general-purpose and context-specific text dictionaries to quantify tone, we find that plaintiffs target more optimistic statements in their lawsuits and that sued firms' earnings announcements are unusually optimistic relative to other firms experiencing similar economic circumstances. These findings are consistent with optimistic language increasing litigation risk. In addition, we find incrementally greater litigation risk when managers are both unusually optimistic and engage in abnormal selling. This finding suggests that firms can mitigate litigation risk by ensuring that optimistic statements are not contradicted by insider selling. Finally, we find that insider selling is associated with litigation risk only when contemporaneous disclosures are unusually optimistic. JEL Classifications: G38; K22; M41; M48. Data Availability: Data are available from sources indicated in the text.

How Much Does IFRS Cost? IFRS Adoption and Audit Fees

2012 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 429-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel T. De George ◽  
Colin B. Ferguson ◽  
Nasser A. Spear
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Audit Fees ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Financial Reporting Standards ◽  
Response Data ◽  
Ifrs Adoption

ABSTRACT This study provides evidence of a directly observable and significant cost of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption, by examining the fees incurred by firms for the statutory audit of their financial statements at the time of transition. Using a comprehensive dataset of all publicly traded Australian companies, we quantify an economy-wide increase in the mean level of audit costs of 23 percent in the year of IFRS transition. We estimate an abnormal IFRS-related increase in audit costs in excess of 8 percent, beyond the normal yearly fee increases in the pre-IFRS period. Further analysis provides evidence that small firms incur disproportionately higher IFRS-related audit fees. We then survey auditors to construct a firm-specific measure of IFRS audit complexity. Empirical findings suggest that firms with greater exposure to audit complexity exhibit greater increases in compliance costs for the transition to IFRS. Given the renewed debate about whether the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should mandate IFRS for U.S. firms, our results are of timely importance. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from the sources identified in the paper. Survey response data are available from the authors upon request.

Further Evidence on the Effect of Regulation on the Exit of Small Auditors from the Audit Market and Resulting Audit Quality

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-115
Author(s):  
Neil L. Fargher ◽  
Alicia Jiang ◽  
Yangxin Yu
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Discretionary Accruals ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
The Public ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Jel Classifications

SUMMARY Following the introduction of SOX in 2002 and the introduction of PCAOB inspections starting from 2003, DeFond and Lennox (2011) found that a large number of small auditors exited the SEC client audit market during the 2002–2004 period and that these exiting auditors were of lower quality relative to non-exiting auditors. This paper seeks to verify whether SOX and the introduction of PCAOB inspections improved audit quality through incentivizing small auditors providing lower audit quality to exit the market. Using client discretionary accruals and the likelihood of the clients restating financial statements as proxies for audit quality, we do not find that the small auditors that exited the market for SEC client audits were of lower quality than successor small audit firms that did not exit the market. JEL Classifications: G18; L51. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

Changes in Audit Quality under Auditing Standard No. 5

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Draeger ◽  
Don Herrmann ◽  
Bradley P. Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Restatements ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Reallocation Of Resources ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT We examine the impact of Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS5) on audit quality. Prior research suggests a reallocation of resources toward higher-risk clients with no overall change in audit quality associated with the adoption of AS5. However, using financial restatements as our proxy for audit quality, we find the likelihood that financial statements are subsequently restated decreases in the AS5 period. These results are robust to several additional analyses. In addition to testing the occurrence of a restatement event, our results indicate that the duration of the restated period decreases during the AS5 period. Consistent with the objectives of AS5, we also find that the improvements in audit quality associated with AS5 are greater for complex firms than non-complex firms. Overall, using financial restatements as our proxy for audit quality, our results suggest that audit quality improves following the issuance of AS5. JEL Classifications: M41 Data Availability: The data used in this paper are publicly available from the sources indicated in the text.

Does the 20-F Reconciliation Affect Investors' Perception of Comparability between Foreign Private Issuers (FPIs) and U.S. Firms?

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donal Byard ◽  
Shamin Mashruwala ◽  
Jangwon Suh
Keyword(s):  
Information Transfer ◽  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
Financial Analysts ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Rule Change ◽  
Similar Decrease ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Do So

SYNOPSIS Until recently, all Foreign Private Issuers (FPIs) listed on U.S. exchanges were required to reconcile their non-U.S. GAAP financial statements with U.S. GAAP in their annual Form 20-F filing. In November 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) eliminated this requirement for FPIs reporting in IFRS. We use this rule change to provide evidence on whether the U.S. GAAP reconciliation affects investors' perception of the degree of comparability between FPIs and domestic U.S. firms reporting in U.S. GAAP. To do so, we test whether the SEC's rule change reduced information transfer from IFRS-reporting FPIs to comparable U.S. firms at the FPIs' earnings announcements. Consistent with the U.S. GAAP reconciliation increasing investors' perception of comparability between FPIs and U.S. firms, we find that information transfer from IFRS-reporting FPIs to comparable U.S. firms decreased significantly after the rule change, on average. We also find evidence consistent with a decrease in comparability for financial analysts forecasting earnings for comparable U.S. firms. In contrast, we find no evidence of a similar decrease in information transfer for FPIs not reporting in IFRS that are unaffected by the rule change.

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