Ray Ball

Bio: Ray Ball is an academic researcher from University of Chicago. The author has contributed to research in topics: Earnings & Earnings response coefficient. The author has an hindex of 55, co-authored 114 publications receiving 25595 citations. Previous affiliations of Ray Ball include University of Rochester & University of New South Wales.

An empirical evaluation of accounting income numbers

Abstract: Accounting theorists have generally evaluated the usefulness of accounting practices by the extent of their agreement with a particular analytic model. The model may consist of only a few assertions or it may be a rigorously developed argument. In each case, the method of evaluation has been to compare existing practices with the more preferable practices implied by the model or with some standard which the model implies all practices should possess. The shortcoming of this method is that it ignores a significant source of knowledge of the world, namely, the extent to which the predictions of the model conform to observed behavior. It is not enough to defend an analytical inquiry on the basis that its assumptions are empirically supportable, for how is one to know that a theory embraces all of the relevant supportable assumptions? And how does one explain the predictive powers of propositions which are based on unverifiable assumptions such as the maximization of utility functions? Further, how is one to resolve differences between propositions which arise from considering different aspects of the world? The limitations of a completely analytical approach to usefulness are illustrated by the argument that income numbers cannot be defined substantively, that they lack "meaning" and are therefore of doubtful utility.' The argument stems in part from the patchwork development of account-

Infrastructure Requirements for an Economically Efficient System of Public Financial Reporting and Disclosure

Abstract: an economically efficient system of public financial reporting (audited accounting information) and disclosure (non-accounting information). Financial reporting and disclosure are complementary means of ameliorating information asymmetry between managers and parties contracting with their firm, including shareholders, lenders, suppliers, customers, and employees. The efficiency of a country’s financial reporting and disclosure system therefore is crucial to its development of economically efficient public corporations and public securities markets as well as to the development of its economy. A skeptical view of making sudden changes to reporting and disclosure systems is adopted, due to the economic, political, legal, and institutional complexity involved in effecting actual change. A particularly skeptical view is reserved for simply mandating new accounting standards for public financial reporting. This amounts to little more than “window dressing,” unless it is accompanied by wholesale revision of the infrastructure that determines the financial reporting incentives of managers and auditors. If forced to nominate a single place from which to

Efficient capital markets: a review of theory and empirical work*

Abstract: Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work Author(s): Eugene F. Fama Source: The Journal of Finance, Vol. 25, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Finance Association New York, N.Y. December, 28-30, 1969 (May, 1970), pp. 383-417 Published by: Blackwell Publishing for the American Finance Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2325486 Accessed: 30/03/2010 21:28

The Cross‐Section of Expected Stock Returns

Abstract: Two easily measured variables, size and book-to-market equity, combine to capture the cross-sectional variation in average stock returns associated with market 3, size, leverage, book-to-market equity, and earnings-price ratios. Moreover, when the tests allow for variation in 3 that is unrelated to size, the relation between market /3 and average return is flat, even when 3 is the only explanatory variable. THE ASSET-PRICING MODEL OF Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965), and Black (1972) has long shaped the way academics and practitioners think about average returns and risk. The central prediction of the model is that the market portfolio of invested wealth is mean-variance efficient in the sense of Markowitz (1959). The efficiency of the market portfolio implies that (a) expected returns on securities are a positive linear function of their market O3s (the slope in the regression of a security's return on the market's return), and (b) market O3s suffice to describe the cross-section of expected returns. There are several empirical contradictions of the Sharpe-Lintner-Black (SLB) model. The most prominent is the size effect of Banz (1981). He finds that market equity, ME (a stock's price times shares outstanding), adds to the explanation of the cross-section of average returns provided by market Os. Average returns on small (low ME) stocks are too high given their f estimates, and average returns on large stocks are too low. Another contradiction of the SLB model is the positive relation between leverage and average return documented by Bhandari (1988). It is plausible that leverage is associated with risk and expected return, but in the SLB model, leverage risk should be captured by market S. Bhandari finds, howev er, that leverage helps explain the cross-section of average stock returns in tests that include size (ME) as well as A. Stattman (1980) and Rosenberg, Reid, and Lanstein (1985) find that average returns on U.S. stocks are positively related to the ratio of a firm's book value of common equity, BE, to its market value, ME. Chan, Hamao, and Lakonishok (1991) find that book-to-market equity, BE/ME, also has a strong role in explaining the cross-section of average returns on Japanese stocks.

Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests

Abstract: This paper tests the relationship between average return and risk for New York Stock Exchange common stocks. The theoretical basis of the tests is the "two-parameter" portfolio model and models of market equilibrium derived from the two-parameter portfolio model. We cannot reject the hypothesis of these models that the pricing of common stocks reflects the attempts of risk-averse investors to hold portfolios that are "efficient" in terms of expected value and dispersion of return. Moreover, the observed "fair game" properties of the coefficients and residuals of the risk-return regressions are consistent with an "efficient capital market"--that is, a market where prices of securities

Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency

Abstract: This paper documents that strategies which buy stocks that have performed well in the past and sell stocks that have performed poorly in the past generate significant positive returns over 3- to 12-month holding periods. We find that the profitability of these strategies are not due to their systematic risk or to delayed stock price reactions to common factors. However, part of the abnormal returns generated in the first year after portfolio formation dissipates in the following two years. A similar pattern of returns around the earnings announcements of past winners and losers is also documented

Does the Stock Market Overreact

Abstract: Research in experimental psychology suggests that, in violation of Bayes' rule, most people tend to "overreact" to unexpected and dramatic news events. This study of market efficiency investigates whether such behavior affects stock prices. The empirical evidence, based on CRSP monthly return data, is consistent with the overreaction hypothesis. Substantial weak form market inefficiencies are discovered. The results also shed new light on the January returns earned by prior "winners" and "losers." Portfolios of losers experience exceptionally large January returns as late as five years after portfolio formation. As ECONOMISTS INTERESTED IN both market behavior and the psychology of individual decision making, we have been struck by the similarity of two sets of empirical findings. Both classes of behavior can be characterized as displaying overreaction. This study was undertaken to investigate the possibility that these phenomena are related by more than just appearance. We begin by describing briefly the individual and market behavior that piqued our interest. The term overreaction carries with it an implicit comparison to some degree of reaction that is considered to be appropriate. What is an appropriate reaction? One class,,of tasks which have a well-established norm are probability revision problems for which Bayes' rule prescribes the correct reaction to new information. It has now been well-established that Bayes' rule is not an apt characterization of how individuals actually respond to new data (Kahneman et al. [14]). In revising their beliefs, individuals tend to overweight recent information and underweight prior (or base rate) data. People seem to make predictions according to a simple matching rule: "The predicted value is selected so that the standing of the case in the distribution of outcomes matches its standing in the distribution of impressions" (Kahneman and Tversky [14, p. 416]). This rule-of-thumb, an instance of what Kahneman and Tversky call the representativeness heuristic, violates the basic statistical principal that the extremeness of predictions must be moderated by considerations of predictability. Grether [12] has replicated this finding under incentive compatible conditions. There is also considerable evidence that the actual expectations of professional security analysts and economic forecasters display the same overreaction bias (for a review, see De Bondt [7]). One of the earliest observations about overreaction in markets was made by J. M. Keynes:"... day-to-day fluctuations in the profits of existing investments,