OULU BUSINESS SCHOOL. Wang Meng THE IMPACT OF EARNINGS MANAGEMENT ON ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM

Transcription

1 OULU BUSINESS SCHOOL Wang Meng THE IMPACT OF EARNINGS MANAGEMENT ON ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM Master s Thesis Department of Accounting August, 2012

2 Un Department of Accounting Author Supervisor Wang Meng Juha-Pekka Kallunki Tle The Impact of Earnings Management on Accounting Conservatism Subject Type of the degree Time of publication Accounting Master's Thesis August 2012 Abstract Number of pages 78 This study attempts to explore and empirically examine the impact earnings management has on earnings conservatisms. I argue that in the practice of income-decreasing earning management, managers more likely accelerate the recognion of bad news in earnings than good news and thus actually influences firms' earnings conservatism by biasing the degree of firms' earnings conservatism upwards. While in the practice of income-increasing earnings management, managers more likely speed up the recognion of good news in earnings while defer the recognion of bad news in earnings and thus actually affects firms' earnings conservatism by biasing the degree of firms' earnings conservatism downwards. I also argue that the firms which engage in income-decreasing earnings management tend to be more conservative than the firms which engage in income-increasing earnings management. In the empirical examination, I use the incremental bad news effect in Basu (1997) earnings regression model to measure the degree of earnings conservatism. Discretionary accruals is used to proxy for earnings management. I partion the full sample into income-decreasing sub sample and income-increasing sub sample according to the sign of firms' discretionary accruals. The results show: (1) In Basu's regression model, the negative discretionary accruals sub sample obtains the higher incremental coefficient on bad news than the full sample, while the negative discretionary accruals sub sample obtains the lower one than the full sample. (2) In the combined regression model, the estimated coefficient, which captures the incremental earnings' response to bad news for the negative discretionary accruals sub sample firms, is significantly posive. The results therefore support my hypotheses. Keywords condional conservatism, asymmetric timeliness, discretionary accruals, earnings management Addional information

3 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was wrten at the Universy of Oulu. I would like to thank those who have helped me throughout this process. First of all, I owe my deepest debt to my supervisor, Professor Juha-Pekka Kallunki, who has guided me and offered extremely valuable comments in completing this paper. Also I would like to thank Dr. Henry Jarva for his advice and help in data collection. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who have always supported and encouraged me throughout this process. Oulu, August 2012 Wang Meng

4 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Acknowledgements Table of Contents Table of Figures Table of Tables 1 INTRODUCTION Background Prior Related Research Research Problem and Structure of Thesis ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM Definion Condional Conservatism Explanations for Conservatism Origin Contracting Explanation Ligation Explanation Tax Explanation Regulation Explanation Conservatism Measures EARNINGS MANAGEMENT Definion Incentives for Earnings Management Capal Market Incentives Contracting Incentives Polical Incentives Techniques and Main Patterns for Earnings Management Three Techniques for Earnings Management Patterns of Earnings Management Accrual-Based Earnings Management... 48

5 Accruals and Earnings Management Accruals Methodologies to Detect Earnings Management HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT Condional Accounting Conservatism and Earnings Management Earnings Management Impacts Condional Conservatism through Accruals56 5 RESEARCH DESIGN Measure of Earnings Management Measure of Earnings Conservatism EMPIRICAL RESULT Sample Selection, Data, and Descriptive Statistics Result Analysis CONCLUSION REFERENCE... 72

6 6 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1. Example of book value of a fixed asset under conservative accounting when estimates of remaining useful life change (Basu, 1997) Figure 2. Example of reported net income under conservative accounting when estimates of remaining useful life of a fixed asset change (Basu, 1997) Figure 3. Asymmetry in earnings recognion under condional conservatism (Basu, 1997)... 24

7 7 TABLE OF TABLES Table 1 Descriptive statistics of key variables Table 2 Jones ( 1991) estimation results Table 3 Results from Basu (1997) regression model Table 4 Results from combined regression model... 67

8 8 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Financial reporting, on the one hand, is regarded as a mechanism to convert firms' inside information to the outside financial information users. It improves the efficiency of capal markets through supplying useful financial information to investors who rely on to make investment decisions. Investors require the firms' managers to provide relevant financial information, which can best reflect firms' current operations and future prospects. On the other hand, financial reporting offers accounting measures, which are related to reported accounting number for managerial performance evaluation purpose. Net income is a typical example of accounting measure. Accounting measures provided by financial statements are normally tied to managers' bonus plan as a stimulus for generating more value for firms' shareholders. However, there exists the conflict of interests between managers and firms' shareholders (investors) and agency theory attributes to the separation of firms' ownership and control. In addion, due to the existence of information asymmetry, managers have more private knowledge of firms' financial condions. This obvious advantage of firms' inside information over shareholders enables managers to hide certain information or to report biased accounting information to investors or other outside information users for various incentives. Accounting conservatisms in financial reporting arises primarily for the purpose to facilate external parties such as investors, lenders and standard setter to govern or monor the firm's operations. Firstly, for the purpose to protect investors and other stakeholders' interests since the existence of interest conflict between managers and investors (or lenders). It migates the moral hazard and adverse selection problems between managers and investors (or lenders) via avoiding managers biasing earnings upwards and thus mislead investors or lenders' investment or borrowing decisions.

9 9 Secondly, shareholders are likely misled by fraud or misstatement in released financial reporting. If fraud or misstatement is detected in financial reporting, firm would be sued by shareholders. Conservatism arises due to this possible shareholders' ligation. Conservatism reduces firms' expected potential ligation cost because understatement of net assets and earnings would generate less ligation risk than overstatement of them (Watts, 1993). Thirdly, income tax as a nexus links financial reporting system to tax system since s calculation is tied to firm's reported earnings. This link between tax system and financial reporting system generates the demand for conservatism. Conservatism benefs firms by reducing the present value of firms' tax liabilies when taxable income is tied to reported income. Finally, conservatism generates due to the regulatory force. Standard setters and regulators tend to be conservative in Financial reporting system because they likely undertake more risk of being blamed and being charged more cost if the firms overstate their net assets value and earnings. Conservatism refers to firms' "prudent reaction to uncertainty" (FASB, 1980). According to (IASB, 1989), the prudence of economic uncertainty requires the firms not to overstate firms' assets or income and not to understate firms' liabily or expenses. The first dimension of accounting conservatism in the lerature is uncondional conservatism (ex ante conservatism), which can be understood as the understatement of assets and overstatement of liabilies (e,g Watts and Zimmerman, 1986). The second dimension of accounting conservatism is condional conservatism (ex post conservatism), which is defined by Basu (1997) as the asymmetric recognion of economic losses versus gains, resulting in earnings reflect 'bad news' faster than 'good news'. Incremental coefficient on bad news in Basu (1997)'s earnings regression model is used to measure the degree of firms' condional conservatism. Basu's definion of condional conservatism emphasizes on the understatement of reported earnings and thus is also referred as earnings conservatism. In the empirical part of my thesis, I follow Basu's definion to test sample firms' earnings conservatism.

10 10 Given that financial reporting requires managers to make judgments over firms' economic events, for example managers need to make judgments over assets' estimated useful life, bad debt allowance, assets impairment, pension obligation. It thus enables managers to exert their discretions over accruals or change in accounting policies to influence reported earning. However, the manipulated earnings distort firms' true and underlying economic performance and thus mislead the investors who make investment decision depending on firms' released financial statements. Managers are motivated to engage in earnings management for three typical incentives. First, stock market sees accounting information such as earnings reported by managers as an indicator for valuing firms' stock price. It thus causes managers' incentives to manage reported earnings so as to affect firms' stock price in the short run. They may be motivated to eher manipulate earnings upwards as to increase firms' share price and thus maximize current shareholders' interests, or may influence buyout firms' stock price to go down by understating earnings deliberately in favor of their own benefs. Second, bonus and debt contracts generate earnings management practice. In order to maximize their bonuses, manager are encouraged to manipulate earings upwards when reported earnings fall between the bogey and cap of their bonus contracts, however, to manipulate earnings downwards eher when the earnings fall below the bogey or surpass the cap of their bonus contracts (Healy, 1985). Certain covenants in the debt contracts, such as a constraint on firms' levels of debt to equy ratio, dividend payout and interest coverage ratio etc., may also induce managers to take actions to report upwards-managed earnings as to avoid violating these constraints. Third, managers may manipulate earnings downwards as to migate polical cost. For example, firms which show high profabily are more likely attract government and media' attention and thus may be imposed special taxes or more strict regulations. In this case, managers may have incentives to report lower earnings.

11 11 Managers practice earnings management normally through accruals, change in accounting policy and manipulation of firms' real activies. Among these techniques, accruals is the most desirable and frequently used one by managers than the other two because is more flexible to exert by managers and is hard to detect by investors or other outside financial information users. As Healy (1985) states, accounting policy changes as an opportunistic earnings management technique is not as preferable to managers as accruals. While manipulation of real activies is seen as the least desirable technique for earning management practices (Fields et al., 2001). However, due to the "iron law" of accrual reversal, current accruals will reverse ultimately in the future accounting period. Earnings management through accruals therefore can only influence firms' short-term reporting accounting numbers. Based on the discussions of conservatism and earnings management above, I argue that in the practice of income-decreasing earning management, managers are more likely accelerate the recognion of bad news in earnings than good news. This action actually abuses the accounting conservatism principle and the tendency to report lower earnings actually create "an addional undesirable conservatism". Put another way, the income-decreasing earnings management practice actually influences firms' earnings conservatism by biasing the degree of firms' earnings conservatism upwards. In contrast, in the practice of income-increasing earnings management, managers may be motivated to speed up the recognion of good news in earnings while defer the recognion of bad news in earnings or even do not report. This action actually impairs the accounting conservatism principle and the tendency to report higher earnings actually affects firms' earnings conservatism by biasing the degree of firms' earnings conservatism downwards. I also infer that the firms which engage in income-decreasing earnings management tend to be more conservative than the firms which engage in income-increasing earnings management.

12 Prior Related Research Basu (1997) interprets condional conservatism as the asymmetric recognion of earnings in losses relative to gains. Based on this interpretation, he predicts that earning is more timely reflecting publicly available bad news than good news. Using negative stock return to proxy for bad news and posive stock return to proxy for good news, he regresses earnings on stock returns to examine sample firms' earnings conservatism. The empirical result shows that the incremental coefficient on bad news ( 1 ) is significantly posive, which imply that the response of earnings to return is stronger for bad news than for good news. Condional conservatism also reflects in the persistence of earning. It is adopted to timely report transory dip in the current period while deter to report unrealized gains but spread over in the future periods. Basu (1997) states that the negative earnings change are more likely to reverse in the subsequent period than posive earnings changes and posive earnings changes have the tendency to persist in the future accounting periods. Following the study of Basu (1997), many researches work on earnings conservatisms. Ball, et al.(2000) extends Basu's study on earning timeliness asymmetry to international contexts across different GAAP regimes. They provide empirical evidence that the recognion in bad news is more pronounced in common-law based countries(e,g US) than in code-law based countries (e,g Germany). Pope and Walker (1999) analyze the variation in the earnings recognion between US and UK GAAP regimes and show evidence that the degree of earnings conservatism before extraordinary ems under US GAAP is higher than that under UK GAAP, however, the result is vice versus after excluding the extraordinary ems in the earnings. Watts (2003) summarizes four explanations for conservatism's origin. First, debt contracting is regarded as an important explanation for the origin of conservatism. (e,g Watts and Zimmerman, 1986; Watts, 2003). Since managers may act contrary to the interest of lenders, rational lenders would incorporate certain protective

13 13 covenants in the debt contracts as to reduce the default risk. Beaver and Ryan (2000) provides empirical evidence that the more severe bondholder-shareholder conflict the firm faces, the more conservative is. Chen et al. (2007) reports that conservatism benefs both lenders and borrowers because conservatism, on the one hand, cause more timely signals to firms' default risk for lenders, on the other hand, lower the borrowing rates for borrowers. Conservatism also helps reducing the dividend policy conflicts between shareholders and bondholders (Ahmed et al., 2001). Second, Ligation explanation for conservatism can be derived from the evidence of the variations in conservatism across different ligation regimes. Basu (1997) examines the conservatism in the US in four periods and find that the increase of conservatism is consistent wh the increase of audors' ligation exposure over the four periods. Ball et al. (2000) investigates the variation of conservatism across different GAAP regimes in the international context. They find that financial reporting in common-law based countries such as U.S, UK are more conservative than in code-law based countries such as France, Germany. Third, the connection between financial reporting and tax reporting results in conservatism in accounting (Watts, 2003). Shackelford and Shevlin (2001) provide evidence that tax planning affects the choice of accounting methods. The conformy between firms' accounting and taxable income can be regarded as a sign for identifying the degree of conservatism. Kim and Jung (2007) and Heltzer (2009) report that the relation between tax and conservatism is stronger when firms' reported income is more conform to s taxable income. Finally, regulatory considerations can be another explanation for conservatism origin. Regulators and standard-setters (e,g FASB; SEC) tend to set conservatism accounting and reporting standards. SEC (Securies and Exchange Commission) establishes a set of regulations to forbid firms' managers overstating net assets value over s first 30 years (Walker, 1992). Lobo and Zhou (2006) show empirical evidence that the financial reporting conservatism increases after SOX Act and the resultant SEC certification requirement are published. Empirical researches mainly adopt three measures to assess the conservatism. First,

14 14 earning-stock returns relation can be used as a measure for conservatism. after the study of Basu (1997), leratures on condional conservatism usually use the incremental coefficient on bad news( 1 ) in Basu (1997) regression model to measure the degree of firms' condional conservatism (e,g Ball et al., 2000; Pope and Walker, 1999; Holthausen and Watts, 2001). Second, the sign and magnude of accruals over time can measure conservatism and negative periodic net accruals over time, as stated by Givoly and Hayn, 2000, is an indication for the degree of conservatism. Third, net asset can be used as a measure for conservatism. Firms' book to market ratio is applied by Beaver and Ryan (2000) to measure conservatism based on the notion that, under conservatism, firms tend to report lower net assets and thus lower book to market ratio. Feltham and Ohlson (1995,1996) develop valuation models which can be applied to measure the degree of understatement of net assets. Managers are induced to engage in earnings management practice for various incentives. First, managers manipulate reported earnings as to affect firms' stock price in the short run. For one thing, they may manipulate earnings upwards to overstate reported earnings. Teoh, et al. (1998) find that managers intend to manage earnings upwards to increase firms' IPO price and that there is a reversal of unexpected accruals in the post IPO period. In the case of the acquision financed by stock, the posive unexpected accruals and the subsequent accrual reversal can also be detected. (Erickson and Wang, 1999). For another, managers may manipulate earnings downwards to understate reported earnings. Perry and William (1994) report that there exists negative discretionary accruals before a management buyout, which indicates that managers have the incentives to decrease earnings. Abarbanell and Lehavy (2003) find evidence that firms have the tendency to show negative discretionary accruals when receiving sell recommendation. Second, managers' incentives to manage earnings upwards or downwards are subject to their bonus contracts. As a seminal study of contracting incentives for earnings management, Healy (1985) reports that managers manipulate earnings upwards only when earnings

15 15 fall between the bogey and cap of their bonus contracts. However, they are motivated to manipulate earnings downwards eher when the earnings fall below the bogey or surpass the cap of their bonus contracts. Dechow and Sloan (1991) investigate whether firms' R&D expense decreases when top managers' (e,g CEOs') tenure is closing, they find that firms' CEOs cut R&D expense in their final year of incumbency as to report higher earnings. Finally, polical considerations can explain for the income-decreasing earnings management. Jones (1991) reports that firms show greater negative accruals in the period of import relief investigation than the period whout this investigation, in line wh, Cahan (1992) find that firms under anti-trust investigation by US government show more earnings-decreasing abnormal accruals during the investigation years. Key (1997) provides empirical results that the negative unexpected accruals are detected in the firms of the cable television industry when they are in face of government deregulation hearings. Managers most frequently use accruals as a technique to practice earnings management. Total accruals can be decomposed into non-discretional component and discretionary component by prior leratures. (e,g Healy, 1985; DeAngelo, 1986; Jones, 1991; Subramanyam, 1996; Xie, 2001). As argued by Scott (2003), discretional accruals component is especially utilized for earnings management purpose. Discretionary accruals and earnings management are used synonymously in the lerature (Kothari, 2001). Prior earnings management leratures use discretionary accruals as a proxy for earnings management (e,g Lara, et al., 2005; Pae, 2007). Beginning wh Healy (1985), a variety of methodologies for measuring accruals are developed by researchers. Dechow et al. (1995) review and analyze primary accrual methodologies up to date, including Healy (1985) model, DeAngelo (1986) model, Jones (1991) model, Industry Model and also provide their modified Jones (1991) model. Among these accrual models, Jones (1991) models are widely accepted by researchers and considered as the best existing accruals estimation methodology. Jones (1991) accruals model is a time-series estimation model. Similar to Healy and DeAngelo models, Jones model is a time-series estimation model,

16 16 however, releases the assumption that non-discretionary accruals is constant over the estimation period and thus estimates the non-discretionary accruals more accurately than the previous models. In Jones model, total accruals is regressed on the variables of firms' fixed assets and changes in firms' sales to get estimated parameters to estimate non-discretionary accruals. And then the discretionary accruals component is assume to be the residuals after deducting the non-discretionary accruals component from the total accruals. Some earnings management leratures are interested in exploring the relation between earning management and condional conservatisms and empirically examining whether earning management influence the condional conservatism. Lara et al. (2005) investigate the variations of earnings management's effect on the measure of earnings conservatism across the different instutional contexts (common law context and code law context). The empirical result shows that discretionary accruals in code-law based countries (Germany and France) has a significant association wh bad news, biasing upwards the incremental bad news coefficient ( 1 ), which is a measure of earnings conservatism in Basu (1997) regression model. The result implies that earnings management, which can be measured by discretionary accruals, actually affects the degree of firms' earnings conservatism in the code-law based countries. Accruals can be used by managers to implement conservative accounting principle. However, relatively ltle prior earning management leratures place emphasis on the effect accruals have on condional conservatism. Pae (2007) examines whether managers' discretion over accruals influence condional conservatism. He decomposes total accruals into non-discretionary component and discretionary component and tests the impact both accruals components may have on condional conservatism. Empirical evidence shows that is the discretionary component, rather than non-discretionary component, that mainly contribute to condional

17 17 conservatism. Prior leratures reviewed above are all mainstream researches in the fields of condional conservatism and earnings management. Mainly grounded on these studies, my thesis is intended to further explore the relation between the earnings management and condional conservatism (earnings conservatism). 1.3 Research Problem and Structure of Thesis This thesis attempts to explore the relation between the earnings management and condional conservatism and empirically examine the impact earnings management has on the condional conservatism. It is conducted as an empirical, quantative research and can be classified as an association study. In the empirical part of this study, I use negative discretionary accruals to proxy for income-decreasing earnings management and posive discretionary accruals to proxy for income-increasing earnings management. Jones (1991) accruals model is applied to estimate sample firms' discretionary accruals. The incremental coefficient on bad news ( 1 ) in Basu (1997) earnings regression model is used to measure the degree of firms' earnings conservatism. Specifically, I first apply Jones (1991) accruals model to calculate firms' estimated discretionary accruals and then partion the sample firms into two sub-sample according to the sign of firms' discretionary accruals. The firms who get negative discretionary accruals fall into an income-decreasing earning management sub-sample, the firms who get posive discretionary accruals fall into an income-increasing earnings management sub-sample. Next, I run Basu regression model for the full sample firms and the two sub-sample firms respectively. I predict

18 18 that in Basu (1997) regression model, the incremental coefficient on bad news ( 1 ) for income-decreasing sub-sample firms is higher than that of full sample firms and that the incremental coefficient on bad news ( 1 ) for income-increasing sub-sample firms is lower than that of full sample firms. Put another way, an upwards bias in earnings conservatism is expected to exist in income-decreasing sub-sample firms, while a downwards bias in earnings conservatism is expected to exist in income-increasing sub-sample firms. To empirically examine whether the firms which engage in income-decreasing earnings management tend to be more conservative than the firms which engage in income-increasing earnings management, I create a dummy variable, S, which set equal 1 if the sign of discretionary accruals of the sample firms is negative, and set equal 0 otherwise, to differentiate two sub samples. I incorporate S into Basu (1997) regression model and run the combined regression to obtain the estimated coefficient 3, which captures the difference of earnings' response to bad news between the sample firms wh negative discretionary accruals and the sample firms wh posive discretionary accruals. 3 is predicted to be posive, which indicates that the income-decreasing sub-sample firms response more strongly to bad news than the income-increasing sub-sample firms do, in other words, income-decreasing sub-sample firms are more conservative than the income-increasing sub-sample firms. In line wh my predictions, empirical results shows: (1) In Basu regression model, the negative discretionary accruals sub sample obtains the higher incremental coefficient on bad news 1 than the full sample does, while the negative discretionary accruals sub sample obtains the lower incremental coefficient on bad news than the full sample does. (2) In the combined regression model, the estimated coefficient 3,

19 19 which captures the incremental earnings' response to bad news for the negative discretionary accruals sub sample firms, is significantly posive. The remainder of this thesis is organized as follows: Chapter 2 first introduces the concepts of accounting conservatisms, particularly addresses condional conservatism (earnings conservatisms) based on the study of Basu (1997), then offers four explanations for the origin of conservatism, and finally presents three typical measures for conservatisms. Chapter 3 explains the concepts and incentives for earnings management, and then discusses techniques and main patterns for earning management, and finally underlines accrual-based earning management. Chapter 4 builds the the link between earnings conservatisms and earnings management and develops two hypotheses of this study. Chapter 5 interprets the research design. Chapter 6 first describes the data and sample selection. And then provides empirical results and the analysis of results. Chapter 7 offers the conclusion and limation of this thesis. 2 ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM 2.1 Definion Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement Concept Statement NO.2 defines accounting conservatism as a "prudent reaction to uncertainty" ( FASB. 1980). In the International Accounting Standards Board(IASB) framework, the "prudence" is interpreted as "assets or income are not overstated and liabily or expenses are not understated." (IASB, 1989). Accounting conservatism generally can be manifested in two different dimensions in the lerature. First, is referred as uncondional conservatism (Beaver and Ryan, 2005), also labeled as balance sheet conservatism, ex ante conservatism (Richardson

20 20 and Tinaikar, 2004) or news-independent conservatism (Chandra et al., 2004). Uncondional conservatism can be understood as the understatement of assets and overstatement of liabilies (e,g Watts and Zimmerman, 1986). Ball and Shivakumar (2006) refers uncondional conservatism as low earnings and book values independent of economic outcomes. Examples of accounting practices under uncondional conservatism include immediate expensing depreciation of property, plant, and equipment (such as adoption of accelerated depreciation accounting method), adopting conservative inventory valuation policies (such as LIFO inventory valuation in the economic of inflation) and immediate expensing all R&D cost in current earnings. Second, the accounting conservatism is referred as condional conservatism (e,g Basu, 1997; Ball et al., 2000), also labeled as income statement conservatism, ex post conservatism (Richardson and Tinaikar, 2004) or news-dependent conservatism (Chandra et al., 2004). Condional conservatism is tradionally described as " anticipate no prof but anticipate all losses" ( e,g Bliss, 1924). Consistent wh this interpretation, Basu, (1997) defines conservatism as "the accountant's tendency to require a higher degree of verification to recognize good news as gains than to recognize bad news as losses". In other words, the conservatism is the asymmetry of timeliness in recognion of losses relative to gains in Basu's definion. In the similar way to Basu's definion, Watts (2003) defines condional conservatism as the differential verifiabily required for recognion of profs versus losses. Examples of condional accounting conservatism include the adoption of the accounting rule of recording assets impairment but not revaluing them upwards, accruing bad debt allowance, wring down account receivable and the asymmetric treatment of contingent losses relative to contingent gains etc. The adoption of both condional and uncondional accounting conservatisms achieves several important objectives. First, protects the interest of investors, claim holders and other stakeholders through capturing the firms' perceived future loss in

21 21 the current accounting period. Second, migates firms' ligation and regulatory costs by reducing firms' ligation risk. Third, reduces firms' present value of tax liabilies when taxable income is tied to reported income. In addion, enables accounting and industry regulators to set standards based on to avoid economic instabily. The lerature places different emphasis on uncondional conservatism and condional conservatism. Beaver and Ryan (2005) discusses that the uncondional conservatism gives more focus on valuating on types of economic assets and liabilies and investigating the valuations' effects on future income. Uncondional conservatism results in that book value of equy is expected to be lower than the market value of equy, especially when firms' future cash flow is uncertain. On the other hand, the condional conservatism endeavors in protecting the shareholders and other stakeholders' interests and thus improving the contracting efficiency, considering that there exist conflicts between the managers and shareholders and managers have incentives to report upward-biased accounting numbers. Basu (2005) points out the crical difference between condional and uncondional conservatism is that condional conservatism uses information when is received in future periods, while uncondional conservatism only uses information which is known at the start of the asset's life. Several accounting researches put eyes on the relation between the two dimensions of conservatisms, Pope and Walker (2003) and Roychowdhury and Watts (2007) provide empirical evidence that the firm's level of uncondional conservatism, proxied by the market-to-book ratio, has a negative association wh the degree of condional conservatism, proxied by asymmetric timeliness in earnings. Further, Beaver and Ryan (2005) develop a model to capture the distinct natures of and interactions between condional and uncondional conservatism. The application of the model reveals the fact that uncondional conservatism is determined at the beginning life of assets and liabilies and thus precedes condional conservatism and

22 22 that condional conservatism affects subsequent uncondional conservatism when resets the cost bases of net assets. By providing empirical evidence, Gassen et al. (2006) also shows a negative relation between condional and uncondional condional conservatism in his study. 2.2 Condional Conservatism " Conservatism in the balance sheet is of dubious value if attained at the expense of conservatism in the income statement, which is far more significant." (CAP,1939). This statement in financial accounting underlines the importance of placing our emphasis on income statement wh regard to accounting conservatism. That is condional conservatism. Basu (1997) interprets condional conservatism as the asymmetric timeliness in recognion of economic losses versus economic gains, which results in that earning more timely reflect publicly available "bad news" than "good news". Basu uses negative stock return to proxy for "bad news" and posive stock return to proxy for "good news".

23 23 Figure 1. Example of book value of a fixed asset under conservative accounting when estimates of remaining useful life change (Basu, 1997) Figure 2. Example of reported net income under conservative accounting when estimates of remaining useful life of a fixed asset change (Basu, 1997) Figure 1 and Figure 2 display the example Basu (1997) gives to illustrate the effect condional conservatism has on balance sheet and income statement. Figure 1 illustrates the effect the news has on the book value of firms' fixed asset. Assume that the original purchased value of a fixed asset is $70,000 wh an estimated useful life of ten years and straight-line depreciation method is applied to this fixed asset. Figure 2 illustrates the effect the news has on the net income of firm. The firm is assumed to have $41,000 net income before the depreciation charge each year of the fixed assets' life. Consider a firm receiving news that changes s estimate of the productive life of a fixed asset (Basu, 1997). If a firm receives a bad news at the end of fourth year of asset's life which results in the asset useful life is expected to reduce by, say three years, then an asset impairment would be recorded immediately in the concurrent

24 24 earnings under conservative accounting principle. It therefore leads to the sharp fall down of the concurrent earnings, however, the would not affect the firm's reported earnings in the subsequent accounting periods. While, If good news is received and the asset useful life is expected to increase by three years, the firm would reduce the depreciation charge in earnings gradually over the new longer estimated asset's useful life and the cumulative gain due to the less depreciation charge would persist over the future accounting periods, rather be recorded in the concurrent accounting period. This example reveals that, under conservative accounting, earnings response more strongly to bad news than to good news and the bad news effect on earnings has more power to reverse in the future period while good news effect on earnings is more persistent. Figure 3 displays the relation between the earnings and stock returns. The slope coefficient for negative returns is higher than for posive returns, which exactly illustrates Basu's interpretation of conservatisms. X (0,0) R Figure 3. Asymmetry in earnings recognion under condional conservatism ( Basu, 1997) Basu (1997) examines firms' accounting conservatisms in the regression model below and shows that the response of earnings to negative returns is stronger than to posive returns.

25 25 X / P DR R DR R (1) Where i and t denote the firm and year respectively. X is the annual earnings, P is the stock price at the end of the previous fiscal year, R is the contemporaneous annual returns. DR is a dummy variable, which set equals 1 if R is negative and set equals 0 otherwise. Coefficient 1 captures the incremental bad news effect on earnings and thus shows the degree of firms' conservatisms. Posive 1 indicates that earnings is more sensive in bad news than good news, which thus implies a conservative accounting. Giving insights into the effect accruals have on accounting conservatism, Basu (1997) also analyzes and examines the conservatism which reflects in the differential timeliness of earnings over cash flow in bad news period versus in good news period. Earnings is composed of cash flow component and accruals components. Since accruals enable accountant to recognize unrealized losses immediately in the current earning whereas not recognize unrealized gains in current earnings under conservative accounting. The asymmetry in timeliness of earning over cash flow is therefore stronger for bad news than for good news, put another words, earning is more conservative than cash flow. Addionally, earnings conservatisms, which are applied to quickly report transory dip in the current period while deter to report unrealized gains in current period but spread over in the future periods, also reflects in the persistence of earning. It implies that the negative earnings change more likely to reverse in the following period than posive earnings changes and posive earnings changes has the tendency to persist in the future accounting periods. Following the study of Basu (1997), many accounting researchers work on earnings conservatisms. Regarding the study of earning conservatism in the

26 26 international context, Ball et al.(2000) extends Basu's study on earning timeliness asymmetry to international contexts wh different GAAP regimes. They find empirical evidence that the recognion in bad news is more pronounced in common-law based countries(e,g US) than in code-law based countries (e,g Germany) and the recognion in bad news in UK firms is as half sensive as in US firms. They attribute these earning timeliness asymmetry variations across the countries to the legal and instutional reasons. Pope and Walker (1999) analyze the variation in the earnings recognion between US and UK GAAP regimes and provide evidence that the degree of earnings conservatism before extraordinary ems under US GAAP is higher than that under UK GAAP, however, the result is vice versus after excluding the extraordinary ems in the earnings. In my thesis, consistent wh the definion of condional conservatism in Basu (1997), I interpret conservatism as the asymmetric earnings timeliness in the recognion of bad news relative to good news. And I use the incremental coefficient for bad news ( 1 ) in Basu (1997) regression model to measure the degree of condional conservatisms. 2.3 Explanations for Conservatism Origin Watts (2003) summarizes four explanations for conservatism. First, conservatism migate the moral hazard and adverse selection problem between contracting parties. Second, conservatism reduces the expected cost of ligation because overstatement of net assets and earning increase ligation risk and thus more likely result in higher ligation cost than understatement of net assets and earnings. Third, conservatism reduces the present value of tax liabilies when taxable income is influenced by reported income. Finally, conservatism benef regulator setters such as the SEC and the FASB by reducing polical costs due to the overstatement of net assets and

27 27 earnings Contracting Explanation Firms can be regarded as a joint of various contracts, of which contracts between firms and managers(employment contracts), between firms and s lenders(lending contracts or debt contracts) are two typical and important ones. Agency theory points out there exists the conflict between the contracting parties. Information asymmetry is defined as that some parties to business transactions may have an information advantage over others (Scott, 2003, 7). In financial accounting, there are two typical types of information asymmetry which are adverse selection and moral hazard. Adverse selection arises when managers explo their information advantage of the firms at the the expense of outside stakeholders, such as lenders and investors. Moral hazard arises when the separation of ownership and control of the firms results in the difficulty for shareholders and credors to observe the managers' effort or performance. Since managers often have the private knowledge of the firm's operations and due to the existence of information asymmetry, once their compensations are linked to the their performances,which usually measured by reported earnings, they have incentives and possibilies to bias the accounting number to avoid any adverse effect that will reduce their compensation. Under this circumstance, conservatism is endowed an ex ante efficient role between contracting parties. Regarding the employment contracts, due to the existence of information asymmetry, managers often have the private knowledge of the firm's operations and thus can explo their information advantage of the firms over the outsiders. Once their compensations are linked to the their performances, which usually measured by reported earnings, they have incentives and possibilies to bias the accounting

28 28 number to avoid any adverse effect that will reduce their compensation. In this case, conservatism is required by owners (investors) to avoid managers' incentive to bias earnings upwards and mislead their investment decisions. Wh regard to the debt contract, as early as Gilman (1939), he explains that accounting conservatism originates partly from the demand in debt markets. Posive accounting theory also suggests that conservatism plays an important role in contracting efficiency and regards debt contracting as one important explanation for the origin of conservatism. (e,g Watts and Zimmerman, 1986; Watts, 2003). Moral hazard problem arises between debtholders and firm's managers just as does between the owners and managers. Since managers may act contrary to the interest of lenders. Due to their information disadvantage, rational lenders will incorporate certain protective covenants in the debt contracts in order to bind the firm' financial condion to a constant threshold. For example, they may set a limation for the firms' dividend payout or require firm not to exceed a certain debt to equy ratio etc. Conservatism requires managers to report losses in earnings more quickly than gains. It thus facilate the lenders to identify more timely the potential increase in default risk, which may be caused by eher external business shocks or firms' opportunistic behaviors. Conservatism can benef both lenders and borrowers in a debt contract. Lenders and other credors demand more timely information about 'bad news' because the option value of their claims is more sensive to a decline than an increase in firm value (Smh, 1979). Once covenants are violated by firms, lenders can benef from through, for example, increasing borrowing rate. On the other hand, from the borrowers' perspective, they have the incentives to comm not to violate lenders' interest and thereby reduce cost of debt or avoid paying higher cost rate. Chen et al. (2007) first directly empirically examine the benef the conservatism brings to both lenders and borrowers in a debt contract. He find that conservatism benef both lenders and borrowers because conservatism contributes to more timely signals of

29 29 firms' default risk for lenders and the lower borrowing rates for borrowers. Several academic research papers explore the relation between the conservatism and debt contracting. Beaver and Ryan (2000) provides empirical evidence to support that the more severe bondholder-shareholder conflict the firm faces, the more conservative is. They document that conservatism increase the borrowers' interest by decreasing the cost of debt and that more conservative the borrowers is, the lower borrowing rates they receive. Ball et al. (2005) documents that condional conservatism, which is defined as asymmetric timeliness in recognion of losses, can improve debt contracting efficiency. He attributes to the reason that conservatism accelerates debt covenant violations so that the decision rights are transferred to lenders more quickly. Ahmed et al. (2001) states that conservatisms play a role in reducing the dividend policy conflicts between shareholders and bondholders Ligation Explanation Due to the existence of information asymmetry and interest conflicts, as discussed in last subsection, shareholders are likely mislead by the accounting numbers reported by managers. Shareholders ligation arises when fraud or misstatement is found in reported financial statements and firm's managers, directors or audor is sued by shareholders. As the increasing shareholders' lawsu in 1960s, shareholders ligation has been seen as another important explanation for the conservatism. "Overstating net assets is more likely to generate ligation costs than understating net assets. Conservatism, by understating net assets, reduces the firm's expected ligation costs." (Watts, 1993). Since the understatement of net asset by applying conservatism in accounting can decline the firms' ligation risk and thus migate firms' ligation costs, firms' managers and audors therefore have the incentives to report lower earnings and

30 30 value of net asset. Ligation explanation for conservatism can derive from the evidence of the variations in conservatism across different ligation regimes. Watts (1993) predicts that accounting conservatism in US firms increases wh the increasing ligation risk in US legal environment. Basu (1997) tests the conservatism in the US in four periods and find that the increase of conservatism is consistent wh the increase of audors' ligation exposure over the four periods. This significant posive relationship between audors' legal liabily exposure and accounting conservatism suggests that more ligation risk generates more conservatism. Ball et al. (2000) investigates the variation of conservatism across different GAAP regimes in the international context. They find that financial reporting in common-law based countries, such as Uned State, Australia and Canada and Uned Kingdom, are significantly more conservative than in code-law based countries such as France, Germany and Japan. While among the common-law based sample countries, Uned Kingdom shows the least accounting conservatism. These significant variations in conservatism across ligate regimes are in line wh the legal and regulation explanations for conservatism Tax Explanation Income tax as a nexus links financial reporting system to tax system since s calculation is tied to firm's reported earnings. This link between tax system and financial reporting system provides incentives for managers to employ conservative accounting methods in financial reporting to report lower income in the high tax-rate accounting period and shift the earnings to low tax-rate accounting period as to reduce the tax payment. So to speak, as tax rates increase, the reported earning becomes more conservative. Watts(2003) suggests that the connection between financial and tax reporting results in conservatism in accounting since the more

31 31 timely earnings recognion of losses than gains enable managers to delay reporting unrealized revenue but recognize anticipated losses timely as to reduce present value of tax payment. Through applying conservatism accounting principle, manager can make appropriate tax planning as to reduce tax cost. Tax system influences the choice of accounting methods can trace back to 1909 in US. Shackelford and Shevlin (2001) provide evidence that tax planning affects the choice of accounting methods. Watts (2003) also mentions some examples of financial accounting method which are affected by tax system. For example, firms may apply LIFO accounting method to inventory valuation so as to record more product cost in current income statement. The conformy between firms' accounting and taxable income can be seen as a sign for identifying the degree of conservatism. Watts (2003) argues that the stronger the association between financial and tax reporting is, the more conservative the firm is. Consistent wh, Kim and Jung (2007) and Heltzer (2009) report the empirical results that the relation between tax and conservatism is stronger when firms' reported income is more conform to s taxable income. In addion, the adoption of different measures for conservatism influences the empirical result of study on the relation between conservatism and firms' tax payment. Kim and Jung (2007) find a posive relation between conservatism and taxes using uncondional conservatism measure, while no such relation is found using condional conservatism measures.the result indicates that the choice of conservatism measure affects the the study on tax-induce conservatism Regulation Explanation