Tony Kang

Managerial Stock Ownership, Analyst Coverage, and Audit Fee

The authors study whether managerial ownership and analyst coverage relate to audit fees. To the extent that these corporate governance factors relate to auditor assessment of the firm’s agency costs and hence various risks the auditor must consider in the development of an audit program, they will affect audit effort and hence audit fees. The authors find that managerial equity holdings and analyst coverage are negatively associated with audit fees and that these associations are both statistically and economically significant. On average, a 1% increase in managerial ownership translates into a 0.2% reduction in audit fees. In the low managerial ownership sample (i.e., less than 5% managerial ownership), a 1% increase in the ownership reduces the fees by 1.4%. Similarly, one more analyst following a company reduces audit fees by 9.3%. These results add to the literature on the effects of corporate governance on audit fees.

Governance Role of Auditors and Legal Environment: Evidence from Corporate Disclosure Transparency

In a sample of firms originating from 20 countries, we examine whether and how auditor size (our proxy for audit quality) associates with corporate disclosure transparency. While prior studies examine the relation between auditor size and several aspects of financial reporting quality (e.g. discretionary accruals, restatements, etc.), there is limited evidence on how auditor size relates to disclosure transparency. There is also mixed evidence on how auditor size relates to reporting quality in different legal environments. We find that auditor size is positively associated with disclosure transparency around the world and that the association is stronger in code law regimes than in common law regimes. The latter finding supports the view that audits play a greater governing role in weaker legal environments.

Managerial Ownership and Financial Analysts’ Information Environment

Despite the importance of sell-side financial analysts as information intermediaries in the capital market, little is known about how managerial equity ownership is associated with their information environment. Using Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens’ (1998) framework for measuring the precision of financial analysts’ information, we observe that managerial ownership is positively associated with the precision of financial analysts’ public (common) and private (idiosyncratic) information, largely consistent with the alignment view of managerial equity ownership. These results are robust to controlling for various economic and statistical factors that might affect the inference.

CEO's Operating Ability and the Association between Accruals and Future Cash Flows

This study investigates whether an individual CEOs operating ability, operationalized as the extent to which an individual CEO utilizes the companys assets efficiently to generate profits, explains the association between accruals and future cash flows. While this mapping can be driven by both the quality of accounting measurement and CEO operating ability, there is little empirical evidence on the latter link. After controlling for the CEOs accounting estimation ability, we find that the association between current period accruals and future cash flows is stronger when the CEO demonstrates superior operating ability. This suggests that a CEOs operating ability is an important determinant of the informativeness of current accruals for future cash flows.

Managerial Ownership and Financial Analysts’ Information Environment: MANAGERIAL OWNERSHIP AND ANALYSTS’ INFORMATION

Despite the importance of sell�?side financial analysts as information intermediaries in the capital market, little is known about how managerial equity ownership is associated with their information environment. Using Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens’ (1998) framework for measuring the precision of financial analysts’ information, we observe that managerial ownership is positively associated with the precision of financial analysts’ public (common) and private (idiosyncratic) information, largely consistent with the alignment view of managerial equity ownership. These results are robust to controlling for various economic and statistical factors that might affect the inference.

Managerial Ownership, Corporate Monitoring and Audit Fee

We study whether managerial ownership and analyst coverage relate to audit fee. To the extent that these corporate governance factors relate to auditor assessment of the firm’s agency costs and hence various risks the auditor must consider in the development of an audit program, they will affect audit effort and hence audit fee. We find that managerial equity holdings and analyst coverage are negatively associated with audit fee and that these associations are both statistically and economically significant. On average, one percent increase in managerial ownership translates into 0.2% reduction in audit fees. In the low managerial ownership sample (i.e., less than 5% managerial ownership), one percent increase in the ownership reduces the fees by 1.4%. Similarly, one more analysts following reduces audit fees by 9.3%. These results add to the literature on the effects of corporate governance on audit fees.

The Relation between Accounting Information-Based Firm Risk Proxies and Cost of Equity Capital Across Countries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate international variability in the pricing of accounting information using ex ante cost of equity capital estimates. Prior literature shows that financial statement amounts are relevant for investor decisions only when there is appropriate economic and legal infrastructure (Ball, 2001). Design/methodology/approach – Accrual quality and accounting loss are focussed upon as indicators of firm risk in financial statements. Findings – The evidence suggests that accounting information is factored into ex ante cost of equity capital in countries with strong economic and legal infrastructures but not in those with weak infrastructures. Findings support Ball’s notion that the role financial reporting plays in a capital market depends on the strength of economic and legal infrastructure. Originality/value – Findings support Ball’s notion that the role financial reporting plays in a capital market depends on the strength of economic and legal infrastructure.

Accounting Conservatism and Firm Growth Financed by External Debt: The Role of Debt Maturity

Previous research shows that accounting conservatism facilitates debt contracting. Extending this line of literature, we examine whether the role of accounting conservatism in accessing external debt to attain firm growth varies with its maturity. We find evidence of a positive relationship between conservatism and debt maturity. We also observe a positive relationship between conservative accounting and future growth funded by all classes of debt, but this relation is due to long-term rather than short-term debt, which is less prone to agency risk. Furthermore, the associations between conservatism and debt maturity and conservatism and growth financed by long-term debt are mostly observed for firms with fewer anti-takeover provisions in place. These findings suggest that the demand for accounting conservatism is not uniform across different debt maturity horizons.

Investment decisions and bank loan contracting

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine how a firm’s investment behavior relates to its subsequent bank loan contracting. Design/methodology/approach - Using a sample of US firms during the period 1992-2011, the authors examine the association between overinvestment (underinvestment) and three characteristics of bank loan contracts: loan spread, collateral requirement, and loan maturity. Findings - The authors find that overinvesting firms obtain loans with higher loan spreads. Additional tests show that the effect of overinvestment on loan spreads is generally more pronounced in firms with lower reputation, weaker shareholder rights, and lower institutional ownership. The effect of overinvestment on collateral requirement is mixed, and investment efficiency has no significant relation to loan maturity. Research limitations/implications - The results are subject to the following caveats. First, while the study provides empirical evidence that investment efficiency affects bank loan contracting terms, especially the cost of bank loans, the underlying theory is not well-developed. The authors leave it up to future research to provide a theoretical framework to clearly distinguish the cash flow and credit risk effects of past investment behavior from those of existing agency conflicts. Second, due to data limitation, the sample size is small, especially when the authors control for corporate governance measured by Practical implications - The finding that overinvestment is costly to corporations suggests that managers should consider the potential trade-offs from such investment decisions carefully. The evidence also alerts shareholders and board members to the importance of monitoring management investment decisions. In addition, the authors find that corporate governance moderates the relationship between investment decisions and cost of bank loans, suggesting that it would be beneficial to design effective governance mechanisms to prevent management from empire building and motivate managers to pursue efficient investment strategies. Originality/value - First, the findings enhance understanding of the potential economic consequences of overinvestment decisions in the context of a firm’s private debt contracting. The evidence suggests that lenders perceive higher credit risk from overinvestment than from underinvestment, likely because firms squander cash in the current period by investing in (negative net present value) projects that are likely to result in future cash flow problems. Second, the study contributes to the literature on the determinants of bank loans by identifying an observable empirical proxy for uncertainty in future cash flows that increases credit risk.

Laborism, Investment Efficiency in Labor, and Operating Performance Around the World

We examine how labor-friendly institutional features, i.e., laborism, relate to corporate investment efficiency in labor in a sample that represents 33 countries during 1996 to 2012. We consider various dimensions of laborism such as the presence of left-leaning government, rigidity of employee protection laws, and collectivist culture. We hypothesize that due to higher labor adjustment costs associated with laborism, firms operating in stronger laborism countries make more inefficient labor investment decisions. Supporting this hypothesis, we document that laborism is negatively related to labor investment efficiency – firms deviate more from the optimal level of labor investment in the presence of stronger laborism. We further find that laborism reduces labor productivity as well as future operating performance, aggravating future GDP per capita in the economy.