Journal of Accounting Research 

About: Journal of Accounting Research is an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Earnings & Audit. It has an ISSN identifier of 0021-8456. Over the lifetime, 2248 publications have been published receiving 304401 citations. The journal is also known as: JAR.

Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations

Abstract: This study tests whether firms that would benefit from import relief (eg, tariff increases and quota reductions) attempt to decrease earnings through earnings management during import relief investigations by the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) The import relief determination made by the ITC is based on several factors that are specified in the federal trade acts, including the profitability of the industry Explicit use of accounting numbers in import relief regulation provides incentives for managers to manage earnings in order to increase the likelihood of obtaining import relief and/or increase the amount of relief granted While studies of earnings management typically examine situations in which all contracting parties have incentives to "perfectly" monitor (adjust) accounting numbers for such manipulation, import relief investigations provide a specific motive for earnings management that is not

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-

Financial ratios and the probabilistic prediction of bankruptcy

Abstract: This paper presents some empirical results of a study predicting corporate failure as evidenced by the event of bankruptcy. There have been a fair number of previous studies in this field of research; the more notable published contributions are Beaver [1966; 1968a; 1968b], Altman [1968; 1973], Altman and Lorris [1976], Altman and McGough [1974], Altman, Haldeman, and Narayanan [1977], Deakin [1972], Libby [1975], Blum [1974], Edmister [1972], Wilcox [1973], Moyer [1977], and Lev [1971]. Two unpublished papers by White and Turnbull [1975a; 1975b] and a paper by Santomero and Vinso [1977] are of particular interest as they appear to be the first studies which logically and systematically develop probabilistic estimates of failure. The present study is similar to the latter studies, in that the methodology is one of maximum likelihood estimation of the so-called conditional logit model. The data set used in this study is from the seventies (1970-76). I know of only three corporate failure research studies which have examined data from this period. One is a limited study by Altman and McGough [1974] in which only failed firms were drawn from the period 1970-73 and only one type of classification error (misclassification of failed firms) was analyzed. Moyer [1977] considered the period 1965-75, but the sample of bankrupt firms was unusually small (twenty-seven firms). The

Financial Ratios As Predictors Of Failure

Abstract: At the turn of the century, ratio analysis was in its embryonic state. It began with the development of a single ratio, the current ratio,' for a single purpose-the evaluation of credit-worthiness. Today ratio analysis involves the use of several ratios by a variety of users-including credit lenders, credit-rating agencies, investors, and management.2 In spite of the ubiquity of ratios, little effort has been directed toward the formal empirical verification of their usefulness. The usefulness of ratios can only be tested with regard to some particular purpose. The purpose chosen here was the prediction of failure, since ratios are currently in widespread use as predictors of failure. This is not the only possible use of ratios but is a starting point from which to build an empirical verification of ratio analysis. "Failure" is defined as the inability of a firm to pay its financial obligations as they mature. Operationally, a firm is said to have failed when any of the following events have occurred: bankruptcy, bond default, an overdrawn bank account, or nonpayment of a preferred stock dividend.3 A "financial ratio" is a quotient of two numbers, where both num-

The Economic Consequences of Increased Disclosure

Abstract: Economic theory suggests that a commitment by a firm to increased levels of disclosure should lower the information asymmetry component of the firm's cost of capital. But while the theory is compelling, so far empirical results relating increased levels of disclosure to measurable economic benefits have been mixed. One explanation for the mixed results among studies using data from firms publicly registered in the United States is that, under current U.S. reporting standards, the disclosure environment is already rich. In this paper, we study German firms that have switched from the German to an international reporting regime (1AS or U.S. GAAP), thereby committing themselves to increased levels of disclosure. We show that proxies for the information asymmetry component of the cost of capital for the switching firmsnamely, the bid-ask spread and trading volume-behave in the predicted direction compared to firms employing the German reporting regime.