Mercedes Palacios Manzano

Investigating the relationship between corporate social responsibility and earnings management: Evidence from Spain

This article investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility and earnings management. Using panel data methodology for a sample of Spanish non-financial companies between 2005 and 2012, we find a negative impact of corporate social responsibility practices on earnings management. Corporate social responsibility is related to ethical and moral issues concerning corporate decision-making. Engaging in socially responsible activities not only improves stakeholder satisfaction, but also has a positive effect on corporate reputation. The results show that corporate social responsibility practices may be an organizational device that leads to more effective use of resources, which then has a negative impact on earnings management practices.

El proceso de armonización contable en latinoamérica: camino hacia las normas internacionales

Nowadays, after the agreement signed between the IASB and the IOSCO in 1995, together with the actual convergence plan between the IASB and the FASB in 2002, the harmonisation process is in a state of effervescence, advancing in order to establish just one set of accounting standards that could be used for both domestic and cross-border financial reporting. For decades, leading accounting theories have advocated the harmonization of accounting principles world-wide to end the confusion and lack of comparability. In recent years, there has been a clear trend towards International Accounting Standards (now known as International Financial Reporting Standards-IFRS) as the single body of internationally accepted accounting standards. In this context, the objective of this article is to analyze the efforts made in the accounting harmonization process in Latin America to achieve the convergence of accounting standards. This research focuses on the Economic, Accounting, and Administration MERCOSUR Integration Group - GIMCEA and on the American Free Trade Agreement Committee for Cooperation on Financial Reporting Matters - AFTA. The article studies the four major economies in this region: Argentina, Brazil (countries from GIMCEA), Chile and Mexico (countries from AFTA), because they have already achieved results. To progress toward the elimination of significant differences in accounting standards, we analyze and compare the standards of these four countries with global standards, IFRS and US-GAAP, to determine areas of significant discrepancies where progress might be made in harmonizing accounting standards.

Influencia del cambio contable en la comparabilidad de los estados financieros bancarios y sus ratios de gestión.: un estudio empírico en la primera aplicación de la CBE 4/2004

RESUMEN La nueva CBE 4/2004 establece un modelo de información bancaria acorde con las NIIF, sin embargo avanza más alla de lo contenido por éstas para este sector de actividad, estableciendo un modelo de gestión de riesgos uniforme y apostando por la transparencia tanto a nivel individual como grupal, en previsión de lo contenido en el nuevo acuerdo de Basilea (conocido por BIS II). El objetivo de este trabajo es evidenciar si este cambio normativo tiene influencia en el performance de la compañía. Partimos de la hipótesis de que el cambio normativo, por afectar al concepto de resultado y las hipótesis de valoración sobre la base del fair value, tendrá un impacto significativo en la imagen de la compañía. Para ello, seleccionamos una batería de indicadores y calculamos un índice de comparabilidad que sometemos a test inferenciales. Entendemos que el efecto sobre los indicadores puede depender del tamaño del grupo, y por ello realizamos también las mismas pruebas considerando este criterio. Los resultados confirman que la normativa empleada en la elaboración de los estados financieros de las entidades bancarias españolas ejerce una influencia significativa sobre la imagen del grupo. Asimismo, es en las entidades bancarias de mayor tamaño donde este efecto es más relevante.

Latin American Banking Institutions Trading on NewYork Stock Exchange: Convergence–Divergence of Latin American Accounting Standards and US GAAP

Abstract The objective of this study is to analyze the degree of de facto harmonization and convergence between the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) of Latin American banking institutions and US banking institutions. We examine 20-F reports of all Latin American credit institutions which quoted shares on the New York Stock Exchange during the period 1998–2003. We also examine the bank financial reporting regulatory environment for three countries. The results show an emerging harmonization between many areas of financial reporting. However, for some areas, there has been little convergence. Also, movement toward harmonizing bank reporting standards has been slow. Thus, there is a need to continue efforts at harmonization in order to reduce the degree of discretion in financial reporting.

Efectividad del proyecto de convergencia contable mexicano emprendido a partir de 2005: evidencia empírica (1997-2010)

El proposito de nuestro estudio es conocer si los esfuerzosllevados a cabo por el Consejo Mexicano de Normas de InformacionFinanciera ha logrado reducir las diferencias en elcalculo de las cifras contables mexicanas y las calculadas bajoprincipios norteamericanos (US GAAP) en el periodo 1997-2010. Para alcanzar los objetivos planteados hemos analizado230 Informes 20-F que corresponden a 27 empresas mexicanaslistadas en la bolsa de valores de Nueva York. Los resultadosobtenidos en la aplicacion de los modelos de regresion linealmuestran la existencia de determinados factores que explicanel grado de comparabilidad de las variables contables fundamentalesobtenidas bajo principios mexicanos y estadounidenses.