Mark H. Lang

Earnings Management and Cross Listing: Are Reconciled Earnings Comparable to US Earnings?

We compare the characteristics of US GAAP earnings for US firms with reconciled earnings for non-US firms cross listing on US markets. We find that the reconciled earnings for non-US firms differ systematically from US GAAP earnings for US firms, and are characterized by more evidence of smoothing, a greater tendency to manage earnings towards a target, a lower association with share price and less timely recognition of losses. Further, splitting by country of domicile, firms from countries with relatively weak local investor protection environments show more evidence of earnings management in the reconciled accounts, suggesting that the extra layer of regulation imposed by the SEC does not supplant the effect of the local regulatory environment. While evidence of earnings management is stronger for cross-listed firms that reconcile to US GAAP than for those that prepare local accounts in accordance with US GAAP, both sets show more evidence of earnings management than the matched US firms, suggesting that reconciliation may explain part, but not all, of the results.

How Representative are Firms that are Cross Listed in the United States? An Analysis of Accounting Quality

We provide evidence on the characteristics of local generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) earnings for firms cross‐listing on U.S. exchanges relative to a matched sample of foreign firms currently not cross‐listing in the United States to investigate whether U.S. listing is associated with differences in accounting data reported in local markets. We find that cross‐listed firms differ in terms of the time‐series properties of earnings and accruals, and the degree of association between accounting data and share prices. Cross‐listed firms appear to be less aggressive in terms of earnings management and report accounting data that are more conservative, take account of bad news in a more timely manner, and are more strongly associated with share price. Furthermore, the differences appear to result partially from changes around cross‐listing and partially from differences in accounting quality before listing. We do not observe a similar pattern for firms cross‐listed on other non‐U.S. exchanges or on the U.S. over‐the‐counter market, suggesting a unique quality to cross‐listing on U.S. exchanges.

Employee Stock Option Exercises: An Empirical Analysis

This paper describes the exercise behavior of over 50,000 employees who hold longterm options on employer stock at eight corporations. Employees typically exercise options years before expiration, commonly sacrificing half of the Black-Scholes value. Exercise is strongly associated with recent stock price movements, the market-to-strike ratio, proximity to vesting dates, time to maturity, volatility, and the employees level within the company. These findings have implications for compensation planners, the FASB as it develops a new accounting standard for options, and financial statement users and preparers who apply and interpret the new FASB standard.

The Effects Of Accounting Diversity - Evidence From The European-Union

In this paper, we investigate the financial statement effects of differences in accounting measurement practice in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (U.K.). We find evidence of significant differences in financial ratios and the stock market valuation of accounting data. The differences do not appear to be explained by the composition of the sample or by macroeconomic factors; they are predictable, given crosscountry differences in reporting philosophies, and they are present for the components of net income which one would expect based on differences in accounting practice. The differences across countries appear largely unaffected by legislation enacted in response to the European Union (EU) directives, which were intended to create an integrated set of reporting standards to serve as a basis for cross-listing and facilitate cross-border investment.1 This research provides descriptive evidence, from a capital markets perspective, on how cross-country differences in measurement practices affect the comparability of the resulting accounting data. Europe provides a relevant context to examine this issue for several reasons. First,

GEOGRAPHIC INCOME SHIFTING BY MULTINATIONAL-CORPORATIONS IN RESPONSE TO TAX RATE CHANGES

We investigate geographic income shifting by 191 U.S. multinational corporations in response to worldwide changes in tax rates during 1984-90. Between 1984 and 1986, the United Kingdom reduced corporate tax rates from a maximum of 45% to 35%, and in 1985 France reduced rates from 50% to 45%. Following these reductions in European rates, the United States reduced top corporate tax rates from 46% to 34% between 1986 and 1988. Canadian rates increased between 1984 and 1986 and then decreased through 1989. Beginning in 1988, numerous countries enacted tax cuts, apparently in response to those that occurred earlier in other countries. As discussed in section 3, differential changes in tax rates provide incentives for geographic income shifting by multinational firms. We identify two subperiods during 1984-90 in which relative tax rate changes

Textual Analysis and International Financial Reporting: Large Sample Evidence

We examine annual report text for over 15,000 non-US companies from 42 countries over the period 1998-2011, focusing on the length of disclosure, presence of boilerplate, comparability with US and non-US firms, and complexity. We find that textual attributes are predictably associated with regulation and incentives for more transparent disclosure and are correlated with economic outcomes such as liquidity, institutional ownership, and analyst following. Using mandatory IFRS adoption as an exogenous shock, annual report disclosure improved in the sense that quantity of disclosure increased, boilerplate was reduced, and comparability increased relative to both US and non-US firms. Firms with the greatest improvements in financial reporting experienced the greatest improvements in economic outcomes around IFRS adoption.

Economic Effects of Transparency in International Equity Markets: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

In this monograph, we discuss the existing literature on the economic effects of transparency in international equity markets, present aspects of an international setting that make it a fruitful environment for investigating these effects and suggest directions for future research.

Listing Choices and Self-Regulation: The Experience of the AIM

We compare companies listing on the London AIM to regulated exchanges in the US and UK. The AIM is unique in that it is privately-regulated and relies on Nominated Advisors to provide oversight rather than traditional regulators. We find that AIM firms perform poorly on a variety of dimensions. Their post-listing returns significantly underperform stocks on other exchanges. Liquidity is low and there is evidence of substantial information asymmetry. Results are similar across subsets of firms including US firms that directly list on AIM, firms that cross list, and domestic listings. AIM firms do not appear to distinguish themselves through choice of Nomad. Failure rates are very high and there is no evidence that significant numbers develop into “highfliers” or graduate to better exchanges. AIM stocks even underperform stocks that trade on the unregulated “Pink Sheets” in the US, inconsistent with a significant bonding effect of AIM listing.

Governance and the Split of Options between Executive and Non-Executive Employees

We examine the determinants and consequences of the split of options between executive and non-executive employees. We find that the proportion of options granted to executives is lower the stronger is firm governance. For the sample as a whole, the relation between options and both operating income and valuation is weaker for executive options than for options to lower-level employees. Splitting the sample between weak and strong governance firms, for the weak (strong) governance firms, the relation between executive options and firm performance and valuation is weaker (stronger) relative to non-executive options. Results are robust to controls for the endogeneity of option granting choice. Taken as a whole, our results suggest that firms with relatively weak governance tend to give a larger proportion of options to executives and appear to receive relatively less benefit from those options.

CFO Narcissism and Financial Reporting Quality

We investigate the effect of CFO narcissism, as measured by signature size, on financial reporting quality. Experimentally, we validate that narcissism predicts misreporting behavior, and that signature size predicts misreporting through its association with narcissism. Empirically, we examine notarized CFO signatures and find CFO narcissism is associated with more earnings management, less timely loss recognition, weaker internal control quality, and a higher probability of restatements. The results are consistent for within-firm comparisons focusing on CFO changes and are robust to controlling for CFO overconfidence and CEO narcissism. The results highlight the importance of CFO characteristics in the domain of financial reporting decisions.