...Financial Accounting For Dummies From Financial Accounting For Dummies by Maire Loughran Financial accounting is the process of preparing financial statements for a business. The three key financial statements are the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows, and they serve two broad purposes: to report on the current financial position of the company, and to show how well the company performs over a period of time. Investors, creditors, and other interested parties rely on such information to find out whether a business is making or losing money, and they depend on financial accountants to help ensure that these statements are materially correct and understandable. Accounting Details in Different Kinds of Financial Statements The three key financial statements are the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. All three record the same daily accounting transactions occurring in a business, but each presents the facts slightly differently. • Income statement: The income statement shows a company’s results of operations. Using this statement, you can see if a business has income or loss during the financial period. All the company’s revenue, expenses, gains, and losses appear on this financial statement. • Balance sheet: The balance sheet shows the health of a business from the day it started operations to the specific date of the balance sheet report.Therefore, it reflects the business’s financial position. The balance sheets lists...
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...The impact of performance-based compensation on misreporting Natasha Burns and Simi Kedia * * Burns is at University of Georgia, Terry College of Business, Athens, GA. 30602, e-mail: nburns@uga.edu. Kedia is at Harvard University, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA 02163, e-mail: skedia@hbs.edu. This paper combines the results of two earlier papers: “Does performance-based compensation explain restatements” by Natasha Burns and “Do Executive Stock Options Generate Incentives for Earnings Management? Evidence from Accounting Restatements” by Simi Kedia. We thank Jean Helwege, Andrew Karolyi, and René Stulz for their comments and advice. We also thank Jim Hsieh, Kose John, Steven Kaplan, Kevin Murphy, Prabhala, Jeremy Stein, Christof Stahel, Ralph Walking, Karen Wruck, David Yermack, participants at the 2003 NBER Universities Research Conference of Corporate Governance, the 2004 AFA Meetings in San Diego, seminars at Arizona State University, Baruch College, Indiana University, Ohio State University, Penn State University, Rice University, Rutgers University, Southern Methodist University, University of Georgetown, University of Houston, University of Illinois, and University of Pittsburgh for helpful comments. All errors are the responsibility of the authors. The Impact of performance-based compensation on misreporting Abstract This paper examines the effect of CEO compensation contracts on misreporting. We find that the sensitivity of the CEO’s option portfolio...
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...Corporate Governance and Accounting Conservatism in China* Donglin Xiaa and Song Zhub,** b School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, China School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, China a Abstract A principal-agent relationship exists among creditors, shareholders and management, and information asymmetry among them leads to asymmetric loss functions, which induces conservative accounting. This paper investigates the determinants of accounting conservatism using accrual-based measures and data from 2001 to 2006 in China. We find that a higher degree of leverage, lower level of control of ultimate shareholders and lower level of management ownership lead to more conservative financial reporting. We also find that political concerns and pressures among state-owned enterprises are greater than those among non-state owned enterprises, which leads to more conservative financial reporting among the former. However, a decrease in such concerns leads to a decrease in accounting conservatism. Overall, we find that among the determinants of conservatism in China, debt is the most important, followed by ownership, and that board has little influence. JEL classification: G30; M41 Keywords: Information asymmetry; Agency problem; Accounting conservatism; Political concerns; Corporate governance * We thank George Yang from Chinese University of Hong Kong and participants at CJAR Summer Research Workshop for helpful comments....
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...created a tobashi scheme to shift losses off the Olympus balance sheet. Companies located in the Cayman Islands were purchased via exorbitant Management and Acquisition Fees. When the first Western President, Michael Woodford, questioned these practices, he was fired after two weeks on the job. Woodford became perhaps the first CEO ever to blow the whistle on his own firm. The subsequent scandal brought arrests of the executive team, an 80% decline in share price, the threat of de-listing on the Tokyo Exchange, and an international look at Japanese Corporate Governance. A detailed list of questions along with extensive teaching notes, bibliography, and references are provided. The case should be of interest in an accounting audit, ethics, governance, or international accounting class. Keywords: Corporate Governance; Whistleblower; Fraud; Tobashi; Zaiteku; Derivatives; Confucian...
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...ARTICLE IN PRESS Journal of Financial Economics 84 (2007) 330–357 www.elsevier.com/locate/jfec Politically connected CEOs, corporate governance, and Post-IPO performance of China’s newly partially privatized firms$ Joseph P.H. Fana,Ã, T.J. Wonga, Tianyu Zhangb a The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong b City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong Received 19 August 2005; received in revised form 31 January 2006; accepted 6 March 2006 Available online 24 January 2007 Abstract Almost 27% of the CEOs in a sample of 790 newly partially privatized firms in China are former or current government bureaucrats. Firms with politically connected CEOs underperform those without politically connected CEOs by almost 18% based on three-year post-IPO stock returns and have poorer three-year post-IPO earnings growth, sales growth, and change in returns on sales. The negative effect of the CEO’s political ties also show up in the first-day stock return. Finally, firms led by politically connected CEOs are more likely to appoint other bureaucrats to the board of directors rather than directors with relevant professional backgrounds. r 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: G34; L33; P31 Keywords: Political connections; Corporate governance; IPO performance; Partial privatization; China We appreciate helpful comments from Stijn Claessens, Mara Faccio, Simon Johnson, Florencio Lopez-deSilanes, John McConnell, Randall Morck, Harold Mulherin...
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...NiCE Working Paper 09-108 April 2009 Quality of Financial Reporting: measuring qualitative characteristics Ferdy van Beest Geert Braam Suzanne Boelens Nijmegen Center for Economics (NiCE) Institute for Management Research Radboud University Nijmegen P.O. Box 9108, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands http://www.ru.nl/nice/workingpapers 1 Abstract We construct a compound measurement tool to comprehensively assess the quality of financial reporting in terms of the underlying fundamental qualitative characteristics (i.e. relevance and faithful representation) and the enhancing qualitative characteristics (i.e. understandability, comparability, verifiability and timeliness) as defined in ‘An improved Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting’ of the FASB and the IASB (2008). The operationalization of these qualitative characteristics results in a 21-item index. Using 231 annual reports from companies listed at US, UK, and Dutch stock markets in 2005 and 2007, we test our compound measurement tool on internal validity, inter-rater reliability (Krippendorff’s alpha) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha). Our findings suggest that the measurement tool used in this study is a valid and reliable approach to assess the quality of financial reports. The measurement tool contributes to improving the quality assessment of financial reporting information, fulfilling a request from both the FASB and the IASB (2008) to make the qualitative characteristics operationally...
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...Accounting Horizons Vol. 27, No. 2 2013 pp. 301–318 American Accounting Association DOI: 10.2308/acch-50434 Capital Structure, Earnings Management, and Sarbanes-Oxley: Evidence from Canadian and U.S. Firms Kelly E. Carter SYNOPSIS: I examine Sarbanes-Oxley’s (SOX) effect on capital structure. I find that SOX is associated with higher long-term debt ratios, as firms listed in the U.S. raise their long-term debt ratios by 2 to 3 percentage points. This finding is consistent with the idea that, although the reduction in information asymmetry associated with SOX could prompt managers to increase equity financing, debt is still safer and less costly than equity in the SOX era. Further analysis shows that the increase in debt occurs in the two quarters prior to SOX, suggesting that firms anticipate a higher cost of debt after SOX and acquire debt while it is relatively cheap. Also, firms that heavily (lightly) manage earnings prior to SOX use less (more) debt after SOX. This result is consistent with the view that firms that aggressively manage earnings before SOX reveal intrinsically weaker earnings after SOX, casting doubt on those firms’ ability to repay debt and relegating those firms to issue equity for financing purposes. Keywords: capital structure; earnings management; debt ratio; Sarbanes-Oxley. JEL Classifications: G32; G38. Data Availability: Data available upon request. Kelly E. Carter is an Assistant Professor at Morgan State University. I...
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...Synthesis of “Cost Stickiness” Literature Abstract Traditional cost accounting holds the assumption that cost changes proportionately with activity. Anderson et al. (2003) show that cost increases more when activity rises than decreases less when activity falls by an equivalent amount, a behavior that they refer to as “cost stickiness”. By following Anderson et al. (2003) researchers investigate the determinants, consequences and different aspects of cost stickiness. However, some studies raise questions about the validity of the inference made by Anderson et al. (2003). Over the last few years many authors highlight some new aspects such as earnings forecasts error, agency problem and earnings management that relate to cost stickiness. The objective of this paper is to review and synthesize the growing body of research on cost stickiness. Lack of theoretical support, merely insights provided by the literature and some inconclusive findings suggest that there are ample research opportunities to improve the understanding in this area. Keywords: Cost stickiness; Asymmetric cost behavior 2 1.0 Introduction The significant role of cost accounting is to analyze the cost of inputs and the value of outputs provided by those inputs. Cost accounting system helps managers to make better decision that leads to cost efficiency and improved profitability. Conventional model of cost accounting assumes that costs are proportional to the cost drivers. Activity based...
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...Comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Act Nguyễn Phước Đại dnguyen0191@student.bristoluniversity.edu Bristol University BUS 555: Business Ethics 10/16/2013 Comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Act Cynics sometimes like to say that locks on doors only keep honest people out, and the same is often true for accounting rules and regulations. We only trust financial statements from honest companies. Hefty penalties for violating the rules may act as curb for executives who are considering whether to play with their numbers. Accounting frauds most often stem from two conditions: lack of transparency and conflicts of interest1. The string of corporate scandals since the beginning of the millennium has taken its toll on investor confidence. Because reliance on corporate boards to police themselves did not seem to be working, Congress passed the Public Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, commonly known as Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which enforced by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). (Hartman, L., DesJardin, J. 2011, p426) The collapse of Enroll, WorldCom, accounting frauds at Tyco and the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley have forced boards of directors, particularly at publicly-traded companies, to reassess how they do acquisition deals and on what basis they can represent to the shareholders that the deal is fair to all parties. (Andrew J. Sherman & Milledge A. Hart 2006, p87) In business there is one simple rule: grow or die. Companies on a growth path will...
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...Conservatism is arguably one of the most prominent and prolonged characteristics in accounting practices (Basu, 1997). Over the centuries, many researchers have accomplished in-depth reports and thoughtful analysis regarding different focuses on conservatism. Literatures related are abundant and fruitful. In next section, this paper will firstly give a brief review on a number of related literatures. Follows that, some of the most significant motivations to adopt conservatism such as contracting demand, litigation pressure, agency problem, tax implication, regulation concern and political economy will be discussed in section three. For the purpose of construction, regression analysis, as the most commonly used research technique, are also analyzed in section four of this paper, which also includes a summary of the requirements in sample selection process. Meanwhile, another crucial aim of this paper is to introduce the empirical evidence of a positive relationship between information quality and conditional conservatism. In section five, this paper intends to explain the empirical findings of Iatridis (2011) that a high quality accounting information discloser will apply conditional conservatism but restrict unconditional conservatism. 2.0 Literature Review Researchers commonly characterize accounting conservatism as “asymmetric timeliness in recognition of accounting gains versus losses and systematic understatement of net assets” (Chi et al. 2009: 48)...
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...AAMJAF, Vol. 4, No. 2, 43–65, 2008 ASIAN ACADEMY of MANAGEMENT JOURNAL of ACCOUNTING and FINANCE THE IMPACT OF DERIVATIVES ON STOCK MARKET VOLATILITY: A STUDY OF THE NIFTY INDEX T. Mallikarjunappa1* and Afsal E. M.2 1 Department of Business Administration, Mangalore University, Mangalagangotri – 574199, Mangalore, DK, Karnataka, India 2 School of Management and Business Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, P.D. Hills, Kottayam – 686560, Kerala State, India *Corresponding author: tmmallik@yahoo.com ABSTRACT This paper studies the volatility implications of the introduction of derivatives on stock market volatility in India using the S&P CNX Nifty Index as a benchmark. To account for non-constant error variance in the return series, a GARCH model is fitted by incorporating futures and options dummy variables in the conditional variance equation. We find clustering and persistence of volatility before and after derivatives, while listing seems to have no stabilisation or destabilisation effects on market volatility. The postderivatives period shows that the sensitivity of the index returns to market returns and any day-of-the-week effects have disappeared. That is, the nature of the volatility patterns has altered during the post-derivatives period. Keywords: conditional volatility, heteroscedasticity, volatility clustering, market efficiency INTRODUCTION The modelling of asset returns volatility continues to be one of the key areas of financial...
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...materials are the copyright of Wiley Publishing, Inc. and any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Close, Consolidate & Report FOR DUMmIES by Maire Loughran ‰ IBM LIMITED EDITION These materials are the copyright of Wiley Publishing, Inc. and any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Close, Consolidate & Report For Dummies® IBM Limited Edition , Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/ permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United...
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...Journal of Financial Economics 53 (1999) 409 }437 Valuing IPOs Moonchul Kim , Jay R. Ritter * Department of Accounting, KyungHee University, C1 Hoegie-Dong, Dongdaemun-Ku, Seoul 130-701, South Korea Department of Finance, School of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7168, USA Received 3 June 1997; received in revised form 18 August 1998 Abstract The use of accounting information in conjunction with comparable "rm multiples is widely recommended for valuing initial public o!erings (IPOs). We "nd that the price}earnings (P/E), market-to-book, and price-to-sales multiples of comparable "rms have only modest predictive ability without further adjustments. This is largely due to the wide variation of these ratios for young "rms within an industry. P/E multiples using forecasted earnings result in much more accurate valuations than multiples using trailing 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved. earnings. JEL classixcation: G24 Keywords: Initial public o!erings; Valuation; Comparable "rms * Corresponding author. Tel.: #1-352-846-2837; fax: #1-352-392-0301. E-mail addresses: kimc@nms.kyunghee.ac.kr (M. Kim), jritter@dale.cba.u#.edu (J.R. Ritter) This paper is based on Moonchul Kim's University of Illinois Ph.D. dissertation. We would like to thank seminar participants at Boston, Emory, Georgetown, Humboldt (Berlin), and Vanderbilt Universities, the Universities of Miami and Texas, the Stockholm School of Economics, the Chinese University...
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...Journal of Financial Economics 53 (1999) 409 }437 Valuing IPOs Moonchul Kim , Jay R. Ritter * Department of Accounting, KyungHee University, C1 Hoegie-Dong, Dongdaemun-Ku, Seoul 130-701, South Korea Department of Finance, School of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7168, USA Received 3 June 1997; received in revised form 18 August 1998 Abstract The use of accounting information in conjunction with comparable "rm multiples is widely recommended for valuing initial public o!erings (IPOs). We "nd that the price}earnings (P/E), market-to-book, and price-to-sales multiples of comparable "rms have only modest predictive ability without further adjustments. This is largely due to the wide variation of these ratios for young "rms within an industry. P/E multiples using forecasted earnings result in much more accurate valuations than multiples using trailing 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved. earnings. JEL classixcation: G24 Keywords: Initial public o!erings; Valuation; Comparable "rms * Corresponding author. Tel.: #1-352-846-2837; fax: #1-352-392-0301. E-mail addresses: kimc@nms.kyunghee.ac.kr (M. Kim), jritter@dale.cba.u#.edu (J.R. Ritter) This paper is based on Moonchul Kim's University of Illinois Ph.D. dissertation. We would like to thank seminar participants at Boston, Emory, Georgetown, Humboldt (Berlin), and Vanderbilt Universities, the Universities of Miami and Texas, the Stockholm School of Economics, the Chinese University...
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...Journal of International Development J. Int. Dev. 22, 890–905 (2010) Published online 12 November 2009 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jid.1639 MANAGEMENT OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS: DO SUBSIDIES MATTER? MAREK HUDON* ´ libre de Bruxelles, Belgium and Burgundy School of Business, France CERMi, Universite Abstract: It is estimated that donors commit between US$ 800 million and US$ 1 billion to microfinance per year. This paper analyses the management of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and its relationship with donors’ subsidies. The results show that the level of subsidies granted per year is related to the management quality but not the subsidies divided by the gross loan portfolio or the total equity. Well-managed MFIs are larger and regulated organisations but not significantly older. The organisational structure or the experience of the MFI however does not play a role in determining its financial effectiveness, except for cooperatives. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Keywords: microfinance; subsidies; management; governance; nonprofit JEL Classification: L31; M54; O16; Q14 1 INTRODUCTION Formal financial institutions have neglected a large part of developing country populations. Considered as high-risk clients, the poor have been denied access to financial services. Microfinance has been praised during the last twenty years as a new development policy tool serving people who have been excluded from the formal banking system. The...
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