Download or read book Essays on Earnings Management and Analyst Forecast written by Yue Li and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Analyst Earnings Forecast written by Wenjuan Xie and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Two Essays in Financial Accounting written by Dorothy Alexander-Smith and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay 1: The Association of Earnings Quality with Financial Analysts' Earnings Forecast Attributes. This study investigates the association between firms' earnings quality and analysts' forecast errors and dispersion. The findings suggest that the quality of earnings is inversely related to analysts' forecast errors but is not associated with forecast dispersion. These results are better understood by an examination of the relationship of forecast error and dispersion with the major sub-components of earnings quality- the quality of the innate accrual component (quality of accruals related to the complexity of the firm's operations) and the quality of the discretionary accrual component (quality of managements' judgment as reflected in accruals used to project future performance). The inverse association between earnings quality and forecast error is driven primarily by the quality of the firm's innate accrual component (InnAQ). As firm complexity and variability increase, earnings contain larger amounts of management judgment and estimation. The larger amount of management estimation included in earnings renders it relatively less reliable and thus forecasting difficulty (reflected in greater forecast errors and dispersion) is amplified for poorer InnAQ. This inverse association is the dominant effect in earnings quality's association with analysts' forecast errors. The quality of firms' discretionary accrual components depends upon whether managers use of their discretion to provide value relevant information, or whether they use the discretionary component to incorporate manipulative and noisy discretionary accruals. In a regression of the of firms' discretionary earnings components on forecast dispersion I find an inverse relationship between the magnitude of the firm's discretionary earnings component and analysts' forecast dispersion. This is consistent with managers using the discretionary component to provide information on firm performance, thus facilitating more precision in analysts' forecasts. This essay contributes to two controversial areas of accounting research. The study indirectly provides evidence supporting managers' (on average) use of their discretion to provide value relevant information in earnings; and it simultaneously demonstrates analysts' expertise in incorporating information related to EQ and its sub components into their forecasts. Essay 2: The Influence of Earnings Quality on Financial Analysts' Herding Behavior. Essay 2 investigates how firms' EQ and its innate (the quality of accruals related to the complexity of the firm's operations) and discretionary (the quality of accruals based on managements' discretion) sub-components affect analysts' motivation to issue herding forecasts. Herding forecasts are forecasts which mimic those issued by other analysts and ignore the analyst's own private information. Although theoretical studies have linked herding behavior to analysts' rational reputational concerns, herding reduces the information available to investors in the market and hence negatively impacts market efficiency. Conversely, bold forecasts, forecasts issued which move away from the consensus (linked in prior studies to greater private information release and higher accuracy) are likely to contribute to improved market efficiency. As capital market intermediaries, financial analysts are charged with facilitating investors' investment decisions. The literature documents that poor earnings quality reduces investors' ability to evaluate firm performance. This essay contributes to the literature by providing evidence on how financial analysts' herding behavior is influenced by EQ and its sub components. Results show that the quality of the firm's innate accrual component is the major driver of analysts' bold forecasting. The negative association between forecast boldness and firms' innate accrual quality indicates that analysts issue bolder forecasts when investors have more difficulty determining firm value (noisier signal from innate accrual component). Given the prior literature finds that bolder forecasts contain more private information and are more accurate, the results suggests that analysts are effectively performing their market intermediary function. The lack of a significant association between bold forecasting and the discretionary earnings component is in line with prior literature's documentation of analysts' poor utilization of the discretionary information in their forecasts. However, this study's evidence of a positive association between bold forecasts and analysts' firm specific experience implies that analysts with more firm specific experience have a greater understanding of managers' discretionary signals and exploit their advantage by issuing bolder forecasts. Results show a negative association between firms' overall EQ and analysts' forecast boldness implying that analysts herd more the higher the firm's EQ. This finding underscores the importance of reputational concerns and the demand for analysts' investment advice for analysts' herding behavior.

Download or read book Understanding Analysts Reactions to Earnings Management written by Yuyan Guan and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis examines the determinants of analysts' reactions to firms' earnings management. I present a model showing that analysts revise their forecasts according to their forecast errors revealed by earnings announcements and reporting biases embedded in reported earnings. The model further demonstrates that the relationship between forecast revisions and reporting biases can be affected by analysts' forecasting ability, the inherent uncertainty of whether reporting biases have occurred, as well as analysts' incentives. To empirically test the model's prediction regarding analysts' forecasting ability, I use analysts' firm-specific experience, size of their brokerage firm, and the number of industries they follow as proxies. Consistent with the model's prediction, I provide evidence showing that well-experienced analysts adjust more for earnings management while analysts following a greater number of industries adjust less for earnings management. Sensitivity analysis using analyst's historical firm-specific forecast accuracy as an alternative measure of forecasting ability further supports the hypothesis that analysts with better forecasting ability adjust more for earnings management. Moreover, analysts adjust less for earnings management when the inherent uncertainty of the reporting bias is greater. Specifically, analysts adjust less for earnings management when: (1) the past volatility of discretionary accruals is high; and (2) the firm has a marked propensity to smooth earnings. There is little evidence that affiliated analysts adjust less for earnings management than unaffiliated analysts. However, analysts adjust more for earnings management in the post-Reg FD period than in the pre-Reg FD period, which is consistent with Regulation FD achieving its objective of strengthening analysts' incentives to issue unbiased forecasts.

Download or read book Essays on Financial Analysts Forecasts written by Marius del Giudice Rodriguez and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation contains three self-contained chapters dealing with specific aspects of financial analysts' earnings forecasts. After recent accounting scandals, much attention has turned to the incentives present in the career of professional financial analysts. The literature points to several reasons why financial analysts behave overoptimistically when providing their predictions. In particular, analysts may wish to maintain good relations with firm management, to please the underwriters and brokerage houses at which they are employed, and to broaden career choice. While the literature has focused more on analysts' strategic behavior in these situations, less attention has been paid to the implications these factors have on financial analysts' loss functions. The loss function dictates the criteria that analysts use in order to build their forecasts. Using a simple compensation scheme in which the sign of prediction errors affect their incomes differently, in the first chapter we examine the implications this has on their loss function. We show that depending on the contract offered, analysts have a strict preference for under-prediction or over-prediction and the size of this asymmetric behavior depends on the parameter that governs the financial analyst's preferences over wealth. This is turn affects the bias in their forecasts. Recent developments in the forecasting literature allow for the estimation of asymmetry parameters after observing data on forecasts. Moreover, they allow for a more general test of rationality once asymmetries are present. We make use of forecast data from financial analysts, provided by I/B/E/S, and present evidence of asymmetries and weak evidence against rationality. In the second chapter we study the evolution over time in the revisions to financial analysts' earnings estimates for the 30 Dow Jones firms over a 20 year period. If analysts' forecasts used information efficiently, earnings revisions should not be predictable. However, we find strong evidence that earnings revisions can in fact be predicted by means of the sign of the last revision or by using publicly available information such as short interest rates and past revisions. We propose a three-state model that accounts for the very different magnitude and persistence of positive, negative and `no change' revisions and find that this model forecasts earnings revisions significantly better than an autoregressive model. We also find that our forecasts of earnings revisions predict the actual earnings figure beyond the information contained in analysts' earnings estimates. Finally, the empirical literature on financial analysts' forecast revisions of corporate earnings has focused on past stock returns as the key determinant. The effects of macroeconomic information on forecast revisions is widely discussed, yet rarely tested in the literature. In the third chapter, we use dynamic factor analysis for large data sets to summarize a large cross-section of macroeconomic variables. The estimated factors are used as predictors of the average analyst's forecast revisions for different sectors of the economy. Our analysis suggests that factors extracted from macroeconomic variables do, indeed, improve on the current model with only past stock returns. In trying to explain what drives financial analysts' forecast revisions, the factors representing the macroeconomic environment must be considered to avoid a potential omitted variable problem. Moreover, the explanatory power and direction of such factors strongly depend on the industry in question.

Download or read book Essays on Earnings Expectation written by Wei Su and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Analyst Forecast Accruals Mispricing and Earnings Management written by 黃鼎喬 and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Analysts Response to Earnings Management written by Xiaohui Liu and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous literature studies analysts' earnings forecasts without considering firms' response to analysts' forecasts. This study improves upon previous research by considering firms' earnings management with respect to analysts' forecasts. I hypothesize that analysts understand these earnings management practices, and incorporate firms' expected behavior into their forecasts. I demonstrate that for firms with high tendencies and flexibilities to manage earnings downwards, and/or firms with negatively skewed earnings, analysts account for earnings management practices by lowering the otherwise optimal forecasts. Comparing analysts' consensus forecasts with proxy for non-strategic forecasts (otherwise optimal forecasts), I find that analysts' forecasts are systematically below the non-strategic forecasts for firm-quarters that have: high accounting reserves available to manage earnings downwards, high unmanaged earnings, low debt to equity ratios, negative forecasted earnings, and negatively skewed unmanaged earnings. These results suggest that analysts forecast below the non-strategic level in order to avoid the large optimistic forecast errors that occur when firms who cannot meet forecasts manage earnings downward. The test results also suggest that analysts forecast above the non-strategic forecasts when earnings are positively skewed, and/or when firms have high tendencies and flexibilities to manage earnings upwards.

Download or read book Three Essays on Earnings Forecasts and Their Relation to Bankruptcy Risk and Earnings Management written by Tim Vater and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Earnings Management and Expectations Management written by Srinivasan Sankaraguruswamy and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior literature has argued that managers manipulate earnings; other literature suggests that managers manipulate analysts (market) expectations of earnings. These two streams treat the two types of manipulation as occurring independently of each other. Our paper suggests that managers manipulate both earnings and expectations at the same time, and model them as jointly determined. In this model, errors in earnings and forecasts are positively correlated. In prior research the data reject the null that earnings forecasts are rational; in terms of this paper's model, these rejections are to be expected; given the positive correlation in errors between managers and analysts, prior tests are mis-specified. A non-zero forecast error on average is taken to mean that analysts are biased; this paper's model of joint determination predicates a non-zero forecast error on average. Similarly, this paper's model predicts rejection of rationality in other standard tests.

Download or read book Earnings Management Alternative Explanations for Observed Discontinuities in the Frequency Distribution of Earnings Earnings Changes and Analyst Forecast Errors written by Cindy Durtschi and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discontinuities at zero in the frequency distributions of reported net income (deflated by beginning-of-period market capitalization), deflated change in net income, I/B/E/S quot;actualquot; earnings, and analysts' forecast errors are the most widely cited evidence of earnings management. We provide evidence consistent with alternative explanations for each of these discontinuities. We show that firms reporting small losses are priced significantly differently from firms that report small profits. An effect of this difference in pricing is that earnings to the left of zero are deflated by significantly different denominators than earnings to the right of zero inducing a discontinuity in the distributions of deflated net income and deflated changes in net income at zero. We also show that sample selection criteria may contribute to the discontinuity in these distributions as well as the discontinuity in I/B/E/S actual earnings. Finally, the presumption in the literature which focuses on the discontinuity at zero in the distribution of analysts' forecasts errors is that earnings are managed to meet or beat analysts' forecasts. We provide an alternative explanation: the discontinuity is caused by the fact that analysts' forecast errors tend to be much greater when the forecasts are optimistic than when they are pessimistic. This tendency leads to more small positive forecasts errors (pessimistic forecasts) than small negative forecast errors (optimistic forecasts).

Download or read book Earnings Management written by Joshua Ronen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-08-06 with total page 587 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of earnings management, aimed at scholars and professionals in accounting, finance, economics, and law. The authors address research questions including: Why are earnings so important that firms feel compelled to manipulate them? What set of circumstances will induce earnings management? How will the interaction among management, boards of directors, investors, employees, suppliers, customers and regulators affect earnings management? How to design empirical research addressing earnings management? What are the limitations and strengths of current empirical models?

Download or read book Essays on Earnings Guidance written by Ihwa Yang and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first chapter of this dissertation examines the association between guidance frequency, guidance properties, and market reactions. The results suggest that the characteristics and market responses to guidance issued by occasional and frequent guiders differ. Compared to occasional guiders, frequent guiders issue guidance in a timelier manner and their guidance issuances are less optimistically biased, more accurate, and more precise. Controlling for the amount of news issued, the market reaction to guidance issued by frequent guiders is more positive for good news and less negative for bad news, consistent with market awareness of the differences in guidance properties between frequent and occasional guiders. Overall, the results are consistent with frequency being an important classificatory variable. The second chapter examines whether investors and analysts recognize differences in individual managers' guidance accuracy and bias, and if they tailor their responses to management guidance. The results suggest that investors react more strongly and assign more credibility to managers who have greater guidance accuracy, and that investors adjust for guidance bias by reacting more positively (less negatively) to good (bad) news guidance issued by managers who are more pessimistic. However, the results for the changes in analysts' consensus forecasts suggest that analyst experience plays an important role in their responses to management guidance. I find that in their forecast revisions, analysts adjust for managers' guidance accuracy and bias only if the analysts themselves have sufficient forecasting experience.

Download or read book The Impact of Earnings Management and Expectations Management on the Usefulness of Earnings and Analyst Forecasts in Firm Valuation written by Yao Tian and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation, I examine the impact of earnings management and expectations management on the usefulness of earnings and analyst forecasts in firm valuation. Earnings and analyst forecasts are important inputs into accounting valuation models. Their ability to reflect current and predict future firm performance can help valuation models predict intrinsic value. However, increasing earnings management and expectations management activities in recent years may have adversely affected the usefulness of these information items in firm valuation. This study shows that intrinsic value metrics estimated using manipulated earnings or forecasts have less ability to track stock prices and predict future returns through V/P ratios, providing evidence for the joint hypothesis of (i) long-term market efficiency and (ii) the negative impact of earnings management and expectations management on the usefulness of earnings and analyst forecasts in firm valuation. It contributes to the accounting literature in several ways. First, it challenges the conventional view that more accurate and less biased forecasts are necessarily of better quality and proposes to assess the quality of analyst forecasts directly by examining their usefulness. It also introduces an improved measure for expectations management and presents new evidence on (i) the usefulness of earnings and analyst forecasts in firm valuation; (ii) the negative impacts of earnings management and expectations management on this usefulness; and (iii) the overall performance of accounting valuation models in firm valuation.

Download or read book Analyst Information Precision and Small Earnings Surprises written by Sanjay Bissessur and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study proposes and tests an alternative to the extant earnings management explanation for zero and small positive earnings surprises (i.e., analyst forecast errors). We argue that analysts' ability to strategically induce slight pessimism in earnings forecasts varies with the precision of their information. Accordingly, we predict that the probability that a firm reports a small positive instead of a small negative earnings surprise is negatively related to earnings forecast uncertainty and present evidence consistent with this prediction. Our findings have important implications for the earnings management interpretation of the asymmetry around zero in the frequency distribution of earnings surprises. We demonstrate how empirically controlling for earnings forecast uncertainty can materially change inferences in studies that employ the incidence of zero and small positive earnings surprises to categorize firms as “suspect” of managing earnings.

Download or read book Analysts Forecasts as an Incentive for Earnings Management written by Susana Callao and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of our study is to determine, within the area of Listed Spanish companies, whether analyst forecasts constitute an incentive to manage earnings (upwards to achieve them or downwards to avoid exceeding them) and whether this incentive acquires the same or different importance for the management of companies at different times. Using the approach of discretionary accruals to measure manipulation, the results show that earnings forecasted by analysts constitute an incentive to manage earnings and that this incentive is greater as the publication of earnings approaches. However, we do not find evidence of an incentive to manage earnings downwards in order not to exceed analyst forecasts, thereby avoiding subsequent forecasts that might be difficult to achieve.

Download or read book The Effect of Analysts Forecasts on Earnings Management in Financial Institutions written by Sean W.G. Robb and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I test a market consensus hypothesis about earnings management in the banking industry. This hypothesis states that when analysts have reached a consensus in their earnings forecasts, managers have an incentive to manage earnings through the use of discretionary accruals to achieve market expectations. A sample of banks is partitioned based on the degree of forecaster consensus and the behavior of one discretionary accrual, the loan loss provision, is predicted for each partition. The results suggest bank managers make greater use of the loan loss provision to manipulate earnings in a discretionary manner when analysts have reached a consensus in their earnings predictions.