Ray Ball

The Role of Accruals in Asymmetrically Timely Gain and Loss Recognition

We investigate the role of accrual accounting in the asymmetrically timely recognition (incorporation in reported earnings) of gains and losses. Timely recognition requires accruals when it precedes complete realization of the gains and losses in cash. We show that nonlinear accruals models incorporating the asymmetry in gain and loss recognition (timelier loss recognition, or conditional conservatism) offer a substantial specification improvement, explaining substantially more variation in accruals than equivalent linear specifications. Conversely, conventional linear accruals models, by omitting the loss recognition asymmetry, exhibit substantial attenuation bias and offer a comparatively poor specification of the accounting accrual process. Linear specifications also understate the ability of current earnings to predict future cash flows. These findings have implications for our understanding of accrual accounting and conservatism, as well as for researchers estimating discretionary accruals, earnings management, and earnings quality. Copyright University of Chicago on behalf of the Institute of Professional Accounting, 2006.

Nonstationary expected returns: Implications for tests of market efficiency and serial correlation in returns

Abstract Recent evidence reveals significant negative serial correlation in aggregate (market-wide) stock returns. We extend this result to relative (market-adjusted) returns, demonstrating negative serial correlation in five-year returns. We then test two competing explanations: (1) market mispricing and (2) changing expected returns in an efficient market. The tests are conducted using the capital asset pricing model to estimate relative returns. The evidence suggests that negative serial correlation in relative returns is due almost entirely to variation in relative risks, and therefore expected relative returns, through time. We document substantial relative risk shifts, particularly for extreme-performing stocks.

Problems in measuring portfolio performance An application to contrarian investment strategies

We document problems in measuring raw and abnormal five-year contrarian portfolio returns. ‘Loser’ stocks are low-priced and exhibit skewed return distributions. Their 163% mean return is due largely to their lowest-price quartile position. A %ith price increase reduces the mean by 25%, highlighting their sensitivity to microstructure/liquidity effects. Long positions in low-priced loser stocks occur disproportionately after bear markets and thus induce expected-return effects. A contrarian portfolio formed at June-end earns negative abnormal returns, in contrast with the December-end portfolio. This conclusion is not limited to a particular version of the CAPM.

Market and Political/Regulatory Perspectives on the Recent Accounting Scandals

Not surprisingly, the recent accounting scandals look different when viewed from the perspectives of the political/regulatory process and of the market for corporate governance and financial reporting. We do not have the opportunity to observe a world in which either market or political/regulatory processes operate independently, and the events are recent and not well researched, so untangling their separate effects is somewhat conjectural. This paper offers conjectures on issues such as: What caused the scandalous behavior? Why was there such a rash of accounting scandals at one time? Who killed Arthur Andersen—the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the market? Did fraudulent accounting kill Enron, or just keep it alive for too long? What is the social cost of financial reporting fraud? Does the United States in fact operate a “principles‐based” or a “rules‐based” accounting system? Was there market failure? Or was there regulatory failure? Or both? Was the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act a political and regulatory overreaction? Does the United States follow an ineffective regulatory model?

Econometrics of the Basu Asymmetric Timeliness Coefficient and Accounting Conservatism

A substantial literature investigates conditional conservatism, defined as asymmetric accounting recognition of economic shocks (�news�), and how it depends on various market, political, and institutional variables. Studies typically assume the Basu [1997] asymmetric timeliness coefficient (the incremental slope on negative returns in a piecewise-linear regression of accounting income on stock returns) is a valid conditional conservatism measure. We analyze the measures validity, in the context of a model with accounting income incorporating different types of information with different lags, and with noise. We demonstrate that the asymmetric timeliness coefficient varies with firm characteristics affecting their information environments, such as the length of the firms operating and investment cycles, and its degree of diversification. We particularly examine one characteristic, the extent to which �unbooked� information (such as revised expectations about rents and growth options) is independent of other information, and discuss the conditions under which a proxy for this characteristic is the market-to-book ratio. We also conclude that much criticism of the Basu regression misconstrues researchers� objectives.

On Estimating Conditional Conservatism

The concept of conditional conservatism has provided new insight into financial reporting and has stimulated considerable research since Basu (1997) developed it. While the concept encapsulated in the adage “anticipate no profits but anticipate all losses” is reasonably clear, estimating it is the subject of some discussion, notably by Dietrich et al. (2007), Givoly et al. (2007), and Ball, Kothari and Nikolaev (2011). Recently, Patatoukas and Thomas (2011) report important evidence of possible bias in firm-level cross-sectional estimates of conditional conservatism (asymmetric earnings timeliness) which they attribute to scale effects. They advise researchers to avoid using conditional conservatism estimates or making inferences from prior research using them, a view we regard as excessively alarmist. Our theoretical and empirical analyses suggest the explanation is a correlated omitted variables problem that can be addressed in a straightforward fashion, for example by fixed-effects regression. We show that crosssectional correlation between the expected components of earnings and returns confounds the relation between the news components, and biases estimates of how earnings incorporates the news in returns (e.g., timeliness). We also show that the correlation between the expected components of earnings and returns depends on the sign of returns, biasing estimates of asymmetric timeliness. When firm-specific effects in earnings are taken into account, estimates of asymmetric timeliness do not exhibit the bias, are statistically and economically significant (though smaller in magnitude and perhaps more consistent with priors), and behave as a predictable function of market-to-book, size and leverage. It would be surprising if this was not the case. Conditional conservatism accords with the long-standing accounting principle of anticipating losses but not gains, with specific asymmetric accounting rules such as the lower-ofcost-or-market method for inventories and the rules for impairment of long term assets, and with loss recognition practices that occurred prior to the promulgation of formal rules.

Accounting standards, the institutional environment and issuer incentives: Effect on timely loss recognition in China

Abstract Accounting income of Chinese companies reporting under both domestic ASBE accounting standards and International Accounting Standards (“IAS”) is shown to lack timely incorporation of economic losses. This is less surprising for ASBE-compliant income, because although ASBE standards are based on IAS, they lack important asymmetric rules, such as lower-of-cost-or-market, and impairment of long-term assets. More striking is the absence of timely loss incorporation in financial statements certified by international auditors as IAS-compliant. IAS resemble common-law standards and are widely believed to increase financial reporting quality. The timely incorporation of losses has become perhaps the single most important feature of income reporting under common law (Basu (1997), Ball, Kothari and Robin (2000)). We attribute the result to the comparatively low incentive of managers and auditors to recognise economic losses in a timely fashion and, conversely, to comparatively high political and tax influences on financial reporting practices. Our results imply that financial reporting cannot be improved simply by governments mandating accounting standards that evolved endogenously in different economies. The most fruitful area for Chinese accounting reform lies not in simply adopting or imitating international accounting standards, but in reforming domestic institutions such as the legal system, corporate governance and auditor training and independence.

Distortions Created by Taxes Which are Options on Value Creation: The Australian Resources Rent Tax Proposal

The proposed tax on economic rents earned from Australian resources investments is examined from the viewpoint of the economists neutrality criterion. Proposed by Garnaut and Clunies-Ross (1975, 1977), the Resources Rent Tax is alleged to be neutral in that it is alleged not to inhibit or distort investment behaviour. We show that the proposed tax effectively is a call option on the value created by every individual resources project. By adapting the Black-Scholes (1973) call option valuation formula, we then demonstrate that the effective incidence of the tax depends upon each projects risks, life and viability. Hence, under conditions of risk, the Resources Rent Tax fails the neutrality criterion.

Asset Pricing in the Australian Industrial Equity Market

The two-moment, mean-variance model of asset pricing is tested against data from the Melbourne stock exchange. The model appears to describe the data quite well, though there are problems in experimental design which are yet to be cleared up. Neither variance nor skewness appears to explain additional price behaviour to that explained by covariance, as is predicted by the two-moment model.

The effect of block transactions on share prices: Australian evidence

Abstract The Sydney Stock Exchange provides an unusually clean test of whether large transactions affect share prices. It is ‘small’ and trading is ‘thin’, so our sample of block trades ranges in size from one to sixty days of normal trading volume. Sydney is a non-dealer auction market and we can identify and eliminate all purchases and sales by brokers, thus focusing on substitution effects. The data are consistent with the perfect substitution hypothesis, without ‘price pressure’. Block size distributions conform closely to the log-normal distribution and Kraus/Stoll regressions of security returns on untransformed block size are misspecified.