报告（讲座）题目：Information Acquisition from SEC Filings and Earnings Management
主讲人：景姣博士香港理工大学
举办时间：2019年1月7日（周一）下午14:40-15:20
举办地点：管理学院第二会议室
主讲人简介：
景姣，香港理工大学会计与金融学院五年级会计在读博士生，英国兰卡斯特大学数量金融硕士，西南财经大学会计学硕士，西南财经大学统计学学士。研究领域包括信息披露、会计信息质量、盈余管理、资本成本和公司财务等。硕士研究生期间科研成果在税务研究、科学决策等期刊发表，博士研究生期间已完成一系列工作论文并在国际知名期刊审稿中。多次参加美国会计协会年会等国际学术会议。曾获得兰卡斯特大学奖学金和研究生国家奖学金等各类奖项。
主讲内容简介：
In this study, I examine the association between information acquisition from SEC filings and earnings management. A tension underlies this association. On one hand, greater information acquisition enables investors to better ascertain a firm’s operational and financial conditions and to thereby monitor its earnings management activities. On the other hand, extensive information acquisition, especially of interim and current reports, can induce manager myopia because of investors’ focus on short-term performance. Toinvestigate this relation, Iusethe number of investors’ downloads of Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K filings viaSECEdgarsystemto proxy forinformation acquisition because the credibility of SEC filings is much higher than that of other information sources and because these three types of filings are both the most frequently downloaded and are most likely to be related to firm performance and thus earnings management activities.
I find that downloads are negatively related to earnings management, consistent with the monitoring view. I also find that the impact of downloading the previous year’s 10-K filings is insignificant, while the current year’s 10-Qs and 8-Ks have a significant influence. To address endogeneity issues, I add firm-fixed effect in the main regressions, employ a difference-in-difference design, or use an instrumental variables technique and alternative specifications. The results show that my findings are robust to endogeneity concerns.
In a cross-sectional analysis, I find that the impact of information acquisition on earnings management is stronger when downloads of SEC filings are concentrated among fewer IP addresses. Moreover, the importance of information acquisition is larger in firms subject to less external and internal monitoring. Specifically, investors’ information acquisition plays a larger role when a firm has a smaller percentage of independent directors, internal control weaknesses, is audited by a non-big 4 auditor or is covered by fewer analysts. Finally, I also find the influence of information acquisition to be more pronounced for firms that have a seasoned equity offering in the coming year or those that have a new CEO.
学院科研管理部
2019.1.6
