JournalTOCs

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.91

Citation Impact (citeScore): 2
Number of Followers: 8

Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 0278-4254 - ISSN (Online) 1873-2070
Published by Elsevier

[3303 journals]

The interplay between mandatory country-by-country reporting, geographic
segment reporting, and tax havens: Evidence from the European Union
- Abstract: Publication date: Available online 20 March 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public PolicyAuthor(s): Rodney J. Brown, Bjorn N. Jorgensen, Peter F. Pope We investigate whether mandatory public country-by-country reporting (CBCR) by European Union (EU) banks affects geographic segment reporting. We find no significant change in the reported number of geographic segments, country segments, or line items per geographic segment disclosed in segment reporting notes after the introduction of CBCR. Consistent with the notion that EU banks may aggregate geographic segments to obfuscate tax haven activities, we find a positive association between tax haven intensity and geographic segment aggregation. Further, we document the location of banks’ operations and the extent of their economic presence in tax havens. We find that EU banks report significantly higher profit margins, turnover per employee, and profit per employee, and lower book effective tax rates for operations located in tax havens, relative to non-tax havens. Our evidence suggests that mandatory public CBCR has limited impact on geographic segment reporting. Nevertheless, CBCR provides additional information to better identify the existence and scale of tax haven involvement. Our results should be informative for EU policymakers currently considering the expansion of public CBCR to all industries. They might also be relevant to researchers considering the decision usefulness of CBCR for financial statement users in estimating after-tax profitability and tax enforcement risk.
The joint impact of accountability and transparency on managers’
reporting choices and owners’ reaction to those choices
- Abstract: Publication date: Available online 4 March 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public PolicyAuthor(s): Lucy F. Ackert, Bryan K. Church, Shankar Venkataraman, Ping Zhang We report the results of an experiment designed to investigate the fundamental conflict of interest between managers and owners in a financial reporting setting. In our setting, owners seek accurate reports of financial performance whereas managers have incentives to distort performance reports in a self-serving fashion. Regulatory responses to such conflicts often call for improved disclosure, including more accountability and transparency (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Dodd-Frank Act). We use the term accountability to imply answerability—wherein managers are required to reconcile the difference between reported and actual performance. We predict and find that when managers’ incentives are transparently disclosed, accountability does not rein in managers’ opportunistic reporting. By comparison, when managers’ incentives are less transparently disclosed (opaque), accountability dampens managers’ propensity to misreport. However, this reduction in opportunistic reporting due to accountability comes about because managers offset higher reporting bias in compensation periods with lower reporting bias in other periods. Therefore, not only are the benefits of accountability restricted to the setting where managers’ incentives are opaque, but the reduced reporting bias might arise due to window-dressing. Although managers seem to care enough about accountability to engage in window-dressing, financial incentives seem to dominate accountability, at least in our setting. We also find that managers’ payoffs are higher when their incentives are opaque, but owners’ payoffs are invariant regardless of whether incentives are transparent or opaque. Our analyses suggest that owners may be relying on accountability to curb opportunistic reporting by managers—a reliance that may be misplaced. Our findings have implications for regulatory responses aimed at addressing conflicts of interest.
Does greater user representation lead to more user focused standards'
An empirical investigation of IASB’s approach to standard setting
- Abstract: Publication date: Available online 2 March 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public PolicyAuthor(s): Alnoor Bhimani, David Bond, Prabhu Sivabalan The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has faced calls to act in the interest of users of financial statements given the perception of the greater influence exerted by preparers and professional accounting firm stakeholders. In response, the IASB has, over more than a decade, sought to increase user centricity, adapting its people and processes to more fully engage the views of users. We report on our empirical analysis from the standard setter’s perspective of user engagement which is a research objective not documented in the prior literature. Our results draw on interviews conducted with 31 IASB representatives, comprised of 26 staff and 5 Board members representing approximately 60% of IASB’s non-support staff as well as publically available archival data. We deploy the Griffiths (1960) citizenship participation framework in reporting on the procedural rigor directed at user utility, to assess IASB’s attempt to enhance its perceived relevance (existential enhancement) as a standard setting body. We explain how a “clash” between new user centric practices and the extant practices led to challenges for the IASB in factoring the views of, and acting in the interest of users, as demanded by regulatory authorities. We discuss some of the tensions this has made evident in IASB’s objective to function as an effective standard setter. Conceptually, our paper clarifies how more embedded representation modes per Griffith (1960) elicited greater user feedback, but that tensions arose in relation to the IASB’s broader objectives to more directly serve users’ interests. Functionally, we offer a more nuanced appreciation for why the IASB might not unilaterally seek to be “user-focused” in the interests of both users and other stakeholders, and in doing so, serve the longer term objectives of accounting standard setting.
Limits of tax regulation: Evidence from strategic R&D classification and
the R&D tax credit
- Abstract: Publication date: Available online 1 March 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public PolicyAuthor(s): Stacie K. Laplante, Hollis A. Skaife, Laura A. Swenson, Daniel D. Wangerin We investigate a tax avoidance strategy where firms use the ambiguity inherent in tax reporting to classify indirect costs as research and development (R&D) expenditures to take advantage of the R&D tax credit. We label this tax practice “strategic R&D classification”. We find a one standard deviation increase in strategic R&D classification leads, on average, to a 1.7% (1.5%) reduction in GAAP (cash) effective tax rates, suggesting this practice provides significant tax savings. However, we also find strategic R&D classification is related to both the level and changes in uncertain tax benefit liabilities required to be recognized under FIN 48, suggesting this practice comes with financial reporting costs. Our study contributes to the literature by documenting some of the costs and benefits associated with a previously unexplored tax strategy, and highlights the limitations faced by tax authorities in monitoring firms’ R&D tax credit.
Do investors perceive a change in audit quality following the rotation of
the engagement partner'
- Abstract: Publication date: Available online 28 February 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public PolicyAuthor(s): Gopal Krishnan, Jing Zhang Though Section 203 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) calls for the rotation of the audit partner every five years, we do not know whether investors value audit partner rotation. This is an important issue since many in the auditing profession believe that mandatory rotation of the audit partner is unnecessary and may in fact impair audit quality. We identify a sample of firms that disclosed changes in the engagement partner in the proxy statement and examine whether equity investors perceive a change in audit quality following the partner rotation. We find a significant increase in earnings informativeness following audit partner rotation. We also find that short sellers regard earnings in the post-rotation to be of higher quality than earnings prior to the rotation. Finally, cost of equity capital is lower following partner rotation. Our findings have important implications for the regulators, auditors, and investors.
On the medical loss ratio (MLR) and sticky selling general and
administrative costs: Evidence from health insurers
- Abstract: Publication date: January–February 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 38, Issue 1Author(s): Hambisa Belina, Krishnamurthy Surysekar, Miriam Weismann The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) imposed an important constraint on health insurers: if the medical loss ratio (MLR), determined as the ratio of claims paid to premiums collected, declined below certain legislative targets, the insurer would be obliged to rebate a portion of the premiums to the customer. It might be expected that this increase in the MLR would result in a decrease in premium dollars available to cover selling, general and administrative costs (SG&A) and a concomitant decrease in profits. However, there is earlier evidence that SG&A “cost stickiness” presents a counter-effect in this instance: namely, that an increase in SG&A costs per each dollar of revenue increase is more than the magnitude of a decrease in SG&A costs per each dollar of revenue decrease. In this context, this paper offers the first preliminary evidence of the impact of the MLR regulatory change on SG&A cost stickiness in the health insurance industry.Applying the Anderson et al. (2003) methodology, our sample of publicly-traded health insurers shows evidence of significant mitigation of the SG&A cost stickiness after the implementation of the ACA medical loss ratio rules and that in periods of revenue declines, SG&A costs decreased more significantly post-ACA than pre-ACA. These results further illustrate the tension created by regulatory policy designed to improve healthcare cost efficiency and its impact on the profit seeking activities of for-profit healthcare enterprises. Thus, this paper contributes to both healthcare and accounting literature by documenting a significant effect of regulatory policy on managerial decisions regarding cost control.
Unemployment insurance benefits and income smoothing
- Abstract: Publication date: January–February 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 38, Issue 1Author(s): Jeffrey Ng, Tharindra Ranasinghe, Guifeng Shi, Holly Yang Labor unemployment insurance reduces unemployment concerns. We argue that these benefits moderate incentives to smooth earnings to reduce employees’ concerns about unemployment risk. Using exogenous variations in unemployment insurance benefits, we find evidence consistent with this argument. We also find that the link between unemployment insurance benefits and income smoothing is stronger when there is higher unemployment risk and when the firm is likely to employ more low-wage workers, who find unemployment insurance benefits especially useful. Our paper contributes to the literature by showing that public policy decisions such as unemployment insurance have significant, albeit probably unintended, externalities on corporate financial reporting.
The effect of general counsel prominence on the pricing of audit services
- Abstract: Publication date: January–February 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 38, Issue 1Author(s): John L. Abernathy, Thomas R. Kubick, Adi N.S. Masli We investigate the effect of corporate general counsel (GC) ascension to the senior management team on the pricing of audit services. Prior research suggests that the GC position may have a significant influence in setting the tone at the top by promoting corporate integrity, ethics, and serving as a governance and monitoring mechanism, but also recognizes that prominent GCs may face ethical dilemmas, causing them to disregard professional responsibilities to curry the favor of the CEO and other executives. Using audit fees to proxy for audit engagement risk, we find a negative association between GC ascension to top management and audit fees. We investigate the mechanisms behind this relation and find GC ascension is associated with a reduction in both default risk and financial misstatement risk, which supports auditors’ perceived reduction in client business risk and audit risk, respectively.
XBRL adoption and expected crash risk
- Abstract: Publication date: January–February 2019Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 38, Issue 1Author(s): Yanan Zhang, Yuyan Guan, Jeong-Bon Kim The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandated the adoption of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) in 2009, with the aim of facilitating data exchange and reducing information processing costs. To shed light on the economic consequences of this important disclosure regulation, this study investigates whether and how XBRL mandate impacts investor expectations of future crash risk. Using the steepness of the option implied volatility smirk as a proxy for ex ante expectation of crash risk, we find that expected crash risk decreases after adoption of XBRL. Moreover, we document that the effect is more pronounced for firms with higher financial opacity, more volatile earnings, and greater analyst forecast dispersion. Further, our analysis generates evidence that the use of customized extension XBRL elements attenuates the effect of XBRL reporting on reducing expected crash risk. Our empirical results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. Overall, the findings indicate that XBRL reduces information processing costs and strengthens information transparency of capital markets, which in turn, reduces investor expectations of future crash risk.
The impact of audit firms’ characteristics on audit fees following
information security breaches
- Abstract: Publication date: November–December 2018Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 37, Issue 6Author(s): Ju-Chun Yen, Jee-Hae Lim, Tawei Wang, Carol Hsu Given the importance of auditors’ assessing business risks and evaluating internal controls, we investigate whether an audit firm’s industry expertise, tenure, and size can help its auditors better understand external and internal threats faced by the client with less effort. Using reported information security breach incidents from 2004 to 2013, we find that, consistent with prior studies, audit fees are higher after the occurrence of an information security breach. However, such an association is negatively moderated when the audit firm has industry-specific expertise, longer experience with the client, and is one of the Big 4 firms. Our results suggest that because of their better knowledge about a specific industry, increased familiarity with the client’s operations, and more resources to understand a client’s vulnerabilities and/or information security policies and procedures, these auditors are more capable of assessing the potentially changing information security risks implied by the occurrence of information security breach incidents. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks.
Cybersecurity awareness and market valuations
- Abstract: Publication date: November–December 2018Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 37, Issue 6Author(s): Henk Berkman, Jonathan Jona, Gladys Lee, Naomi Soderstrom This paper introduces a measure of firm-specific cybersecurity awareness that can be used in empirical research exploring cyber-related issues facing corporations. It extends and updates Gordon et al. (2010), who develop an indicator capturing the existence of disclosures related to “information security” and show a positive association between market valuation and their measure. Since publication of their paper, cyber-related events have become more frequent and salient, and disclosure of cybersecurity issues has become more extensive. Increased disclosure is largely due to a 2011 requirement by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which provides guidance for disclosure of cyber-related issues in 10-K filings. Based upon this post-guidance disclosure, we develop a new measure that captures the extent and relevance of cyber disclosures and show that the market positively values cybersecurity awareness. We also show that a more negative tone in cyber disclosures is associated with lower market values. Our results are robust to inclusion of measures of IT governance and controlling for the firm’s overall disclosure characteristics.
Post-audits for managing cyber security investments: Bayesian post-audit
using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation
- Abstract: Publication date: November–December 2018Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 37, Issue 6Author(s): Hemantha S.B. Herath, Tejaswini C. Herath With increasing security spending in organizations, evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of IT security investments has become an important component in managing these projects. The academic literature, however, is largely silent on post-audit of such investments, which is a formal evaluation of IT resource allocation decisions. IT post-audits are considered a useful risk management tool for organizations and are often emphasized in security certifications and standards. To fill this research gap and contribute to practice, we suggest post-auditing of IT security investments using the generic Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation approach. This approach does not place stringent conjugate assumptions and can handle high-dimensional Bayesian post-audit inference problems often associated with information security resource allocation decisions. We develop two Bayesian post-audit models using the MCMC method: (1) measuring the effectiveness of an IT security investment using posterior mean score ratios (MSR), and posterior crossover error rates (CER); and (2) measuring the effectiveness through detection of a denial of service (DOS) attack using Bayesian estimation to statistically compare the degree of divergence using the concept of entropy. We demonstrate the utility of the proposed methodology using an email intrusion detection system application.
Trade secrets and cyber security breaches
- Abstract: Publication date: November–December 2018Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 37, Issue 6Author(s): Michael Ettredge, Feng Guo, Yijun Li We study the association between firms’ disclosures in Forms 10-K of the existence of trade secrets, and cyber theft of corporate data (which we refer to as “Breaches”). Prior academic research explaining occurrence of Breaches is scarce, and no prior study has focused specifically on Breaches that likely target trade secrets. We provide such evidence, and our use of Form 10-K contents related to trade secrets is a first step toward determining whether corporations actually attract Breach activity through their public disclosures. We find that firms mentioning the existence of trade secrets have a significantly higher subsequent probability of being Breached relative to firms that do not do so. Our results are stronger among younger firms, firms with fewer employees, and firms operating in less concentrated industries. By conducting a battery of additional tests, we attempt to go beyond merely establishing correlations to provide evidence whether such proprietary information can actually attract cyber attacks. Specifically, our results are robust to additional control variables, an instrumental variable approach, firm fixed effects, and a propensity score matching technique.
Vol. 36, #6 Bios
- Abstract: Publication date: November–December 2018Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 37, Issue 6Author(s):
Cybersecurity insurance and risk-sharing
- Abstract: Publication date: November–December 2018Source: Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Volume 37, Issue 6Author(s): Lawrence D. Bodin, Lawrence A. Gordon, Martin P. Loeb, Aluna Wang In today’s interconnected digital world, cybersecurity risks and resulting breaches are a fundamental concern to organizations and public policy setters. Accounting firms, as well as other firms providing risk advisory services, are concerned about their clients’ potential and actual breaches. Organizations cannot, however, eliminate all cybersecurity risks so as to achieve 100% security. Furthermore, at some point additional cybersecurity measures become more costly than the benefits from the incremental security. Thus, those responsible for preventing cybersecurity breaches within their organizations, as well as those providing risk advisory services to those organizations, need to think in terms of the cost-benefit aspects of cybersecurity investments. Besides investing in activities that prevent or mitigate the negative effects of cybersecurity breaches, organizations can invest in cybersecurity insurance as means of transferring some of the cybersecurity risks associated with potential future breaches.This paper provides a model for selecting the optimal set of cybersecurity insurance policies by a firm, given a finite number of policies being offered by one or more insurance companies. The optimal set of policies for the firm determined by this selection model can (and often does) contain at least three areas of possible losses not covered by the selected policies (called the Non-Coverage areas in this paper). By considering sets of insurance policies with three or more Non-Coverage areas, we show that a firm is often better able to address the frequently cited problems of high deductibles and low ceilings common in today’s cybersecurity insurance marketplace. Our selection model facilitates improved risk-sharing among cybersecurity insurance purchasers and sellers. As such, our model provides a basis for a more efficient cybersecurity insurance marketplace than currently exists. Our model is developed from the perspective of a firm purchasing the insurance policies (or the risk advisors guiding the firm) and assumes the firm’s objective in purchasing cybersecurity insurance is to minimize the sum of the costs of the premiums associated with the cybersecurity insurance policies selected and the sum of the expected losses not covered by the insurance policies.