Jeong-Bon Kim

Voluntary Audits and the Cost of Debt Capital for Privately Held Firms: Korean Evidence

Using a large sample of privately held Korean companies that are not required to obtain an external audit, this paper examines the informational value of voluntary external audits of financial statements with respect to the cost of debt. We find that private companies with an external audit pay a significantly lower interest rate on their debt than do private companies without an audit. Further, the interest rate on borrowing is significantly lower for Big 4-audited companies than for non-Big 4-audited companies. Finally, we find that a change in a companys status from no audit to being audited - either voluntarily or because the audit became mandatory - leads to significant savings in the cost of borrowing.

Accounting Conservatism and Stock Price Crash Risk: Firm-Level Evidence

Using a large sample of U.S. firms during 1964–2007, we find that conditional conservatism is associated with a lower likelihood of a firms future stock price crashes. This finding holds for multiple measures of conditional conservatism and crash risk and is robust to controlling for other known determinants of crash risk and firm-fixed effects. Moreover, we find that the relation between conservatism and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with higher information asymmetry. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that conditional conservatism limits managers’ incentive and ability to overstate performance and hide bad news from investors, which, in turn, reduces stock price crash risk.

The Post-issue Market Performance of Initial Public Offerings in China's New Stock Markets

In this paper, we investigate the post-issue market performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) in Chinas new stock markets. Our analysis focuses on whether and how institutional features unique to China differentially affect IPO performance. These features include the existence of dual-class shares for the same underlying firms (A-shares issued to domestic investors and B-shares issued to foreign investors) and the unusually long time lag between the offering and listing dates. Our sample consists of 277 A-share and 65 B-share IPOs that were listed on Chinas new stock markets during the 1992–1995 period. Our study has a number of interesting results. First, A-share IPOs are much more severely underpriced during the initial return period than B-share IPOs. Second, B-share IPOs underperform A-share IPOs (and the market) during the post-issue periods for up to three years. Third, the results of multivariate regression analyses strongly suggest that economic factors determining the post-issue performance of IPOs differ across the A-share and B-share samples.

The role of financial variables in the pricing of Korean initial public offerings

Using a sample of 260 initial public offerings (IPOs) listed on the Korea Stock Exchange during the January 1985 – March 1990 period, this paper investigates the role of information disclosed through the prospectus in the new issues market. The evidence indicates that the market price is significantly affected by financial variables, such as earnings per share, offer size, industry-wide prospects, and offer type. The inclusion of potential signalling variables does not increase the explanatory power and predictive ability of the model. We also find that the market price is more closely associated with these financial variables after the 1988 liberalization of Korean IPO pricing than it was before. This study, therefore, highlights the importance of financial variables contained in the offering prospectus for the pricing of IPOs in the new issues market where information is scarce.

Financial Reporting Opacity and Expected Crash Risk: Evidence from Implied Volatility Smirks

The recent financial crisis has stimulated a renewed interest in understanding the determinants of stock price crash risk (i.e., left tail risk). Recent research shows that opaque financial reports enable managers to hide and accumulate bad news for extended periods. When the accumulated bad news reaches a certain tipping point, it will be suddenly released to the market at once, resulting in an abrupt decline in stock price (i.e., a crash). This study extends this line of research by examining the impact of financial reporting opacity on perceived or expected crash risk. Prominent economists, such as Olivier Blanchard, argue that removing the perception of tail risks (in addition to realized tail risks) is crucial in restoring investor confidence and stabilizing the stock market. Using the steepness of option implied volatility skew as a proxy for perceived crash risk, we find that accrual management, the presence of financial statement restatements, and auditor-attested internal control weakness are all positively and significantly associated with the level of perceived crash risk. Our results suggest that improving financial reporting transparency is an important mechanism for firms and policymakers to reduce the perception of tail risks and stabilize the stock market.

CEO Overconfidence and Stock Price Crash Risk

This study examines the association between chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence and future stock price crash risk. Overconfident managers overestimate the returns to their investment projects and misperceive negative net present value (NPV) projects as value creating. They also tend to ignore or explain away privately observed negative feedback. As a result, negative NPV projects are kept for too long and their bad performance accumulates, which can lead to stock price crashes. Using a large sample of firms for the period 1993–2010, we find that firms with overconfident CEOs have higher stock price crash risk than firms with nonoverconfident CEOs. The impact of managerial overconfidence on crash risk is more pronounced when the CEO is more dominant in the top management team and when there are greater differences of opinion among investors. Finally, it appears that the effect of CEO overconfidence on crash risk is less pronounced for firms with more conservative accounting policies.

The use of accounting information for the valuation of dual-class shares listed on China's stock markets

Abstract This study examines whether accounting data are useful in helping explain the market value of listed firms in China. In particular, we focus our investigation on companies that have issued dual-class shares sold to domestic investors (A-shares) and foreigners (B-shares). Domestic accounting standards (DAS) are used for the financial statements of A-shares while international accounting standards (IAS) are used for B-shares. Our results show that IAS earnings information is incorporated in the prices and returns of B-shares. In contrast, A-share investors appear to place most weight on DAS earnings and only recently has there been an association with IAS information. Book values are value relevant for B-share prices but not for A-share prices. Sensitivity tests show that accounting information is more likely to be impounded in share prices and returns for firms with high individual (i.e. non-government) share ownership. Based on our results, we argue that Chinas move towards the adoption of IAS will be useful for A-share investors, especially in light of the countrys recent accession to the WTO and the consequent opening-up of the economy.

The usefulness of earnings versus book value for predicting stock returns and cross corporate ownership in Japan

Abstract Using a sample of Japanese firms, this paper evaluates the usefulness of the two fundamental products of an accrual accounting system, namely accrual earnings and book value of equity for predicting stock returns. Our analysis shows that both earnings and book value for Japanese firms have the ability to provide for profitable trading strategies or improved portfolio decisions, and that relative to the trading strategy based on earnings or book value alone, the trading strategy based on a combination of both earnings and book value generates substantially higher returns for all cases. This suggests that book value (or earnings) captures certain aspects of equity values that are not captured by earnings (book value). Our multivariate regression results further indicate that the predictive ability of earnings is dominated by that of book value. Finally, it is found that the predictive ability of book value is sensitive to the degree of cross corporate ownership, while it is insensitive to the degree of real estate holding.

Cross-Corporate ownership, information asymmetry and the usefulness of accounting performance measures in Japan

Abstract Using a large sample of Japanese firms, this paper examines the informational role of cross-corporate, interlocking ownership in Japan. We hypothesize that as the level of cross-corporate ownership increases, there will be less information asymmetry between the firm and market participants, and thus, stock prices of firms with high cross-corporate shareholdings incorporate information about future profitability earlier than do stock prices of firms with low cross-corporate shareholdings. Results of various tests strongly support the hypothesis, suggesting that cross-corporate shareholdings are an important institutional factor that alleviates the information asymmetry in the Japanese equity market.

The Impact of Institutional Characteristics on Return-Earnings Associations in Japan

In this paper, we report the result of investigation into the impact of institutional characteristics on return–earnings associations in Japan. It is found that the strength of return–earnings associations in Japan is inversely affected by the extent to which a firms shares are cross-held, the degree of a firms holding of real estate assets relative to other assets, the amount of a firms investment in equities of other firms, and the degree of a firms reliance on debt financing, while it is positively affected by the extent to which a firms shares are owned by foreign investors. We also provide evidence suggesting that reported earnings are less value-relevant in Japan than in the US, and that the pervasive use of conservative accounting practices in Japan is well manifested in the return–earnings association. Collectively, our results indicate that future research on cross-national differences in the value relevance of accounting disclosures must pay more attention to institutional environments unique to countries concerned.