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Full-Text Articles in Business

Understanding Sentiment Through Context, Richard M.Crowley, M.H. Franco Wong Dec 2022

Understanding Sentiment Through Context, Richard M.Crowley, M.H. Franco Wong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine whether empirical results using text-based sentiment of U.S. annual reports depend on the underlying context, within documents, from which sentiment is measured. We construct a clause-level measure of context, showing that sentiment is driven by many different contexts and that positive and negative sentiment are driven by different contexts. We then construct context-level sentiment measures and examine whether sentiment works as expected at the context-level across four prediction problems. Our results demonstrate that document-level sentiment exhibits significant noise in prediction and suggest that document-level aggregation of sentiment leads to missed empirical nuances. The contexts driving sentiment results vary …


Insider Trading Restrictions And Real Earnings Management: International Evidence, Jiwei Wang, Yuanto Kusnadi, Jiwei Wang, Yujie Wang Sep 2022

Insider Trading Restrictions And Real Earnings Management: International Evidence, Jiwei Wang, Yuanto Kusnadi, Jiwei Wang, Yujie Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the implications of insider trading restrictions on firms’ real activities earnings management in an international setting. Using a sample of 28 countries over the period from 1992 to 2007, we find evidence that is supportive of the substitution hypothesis, in that managers have incentives to substitute accruals earnings management for real activities earnings management. This effect is found to be more pronounced for firms in countries with more restrictive insider trading regulation. Our result is robust to alternative measures of real activities earnings man- agement and insider trading restrictions, alternative sub-samples, alternative regression specifi- cations, and controlling for …


Uncovering The Value Of Blockchain Applications In The World Of Finance, Qiang Cheng Sep 2022

Uncovering The Value Of Blockchain Applications In The World Of Finance, Qiang Cheng

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This article discusses the benefits of using blockchain in the context of asset-backed security (ABS) issuance: reducing information asymmetry between issuers and investors, reducing yield spread of ABS, disciplining credit rating agencies, increasing the quality of underlying assets, and reducing issuers’ risk exposure. Such benefits should apply to other blockchain applications in the world of finance.


Do Analysts’ Eps Forecasts Obey Benford’S Law? An Empirical Analysis, Clarence Goh Aug 2022

Do Analysts’ Eps Forecasts Obey Benford’S Law? An Empirical Analysis, Clarence Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Benford’s law gives the expected frequencies of digits in tabulated data. In this study, I investigate the extent to which a sample of analysts’ earnings per share (EPS) forecasts obey Benford’s law. I conduct Benford’s law’s second digit and last-two digits tests on a sample of analyst EPS forecasts of S&P 500 firms from 1998 to 2018. Overall, I find that analysts’ EPS forecasts obey Benford’s law’s second digit test but do not obey the last-two digits test. These findings suggest that while analysts do not engage in number invention, they do engage in rounding when making EPS forecasts.


Short Interest And Corporate Investment: Evidence From Supply Chain Partners, Xia Chen, Guojin Gong, Shuqing Luo Jun 2022

Short Interest And Corporate Investment: Evidence From Supply Chain Partners, Xia Chen, Guojin Gong, Shuqing Luo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Short interest contains valuable information about a firm’s business fundamentals. We investigate whether such information affects business partners’ real investment decisions in the supply-chain setting. We predict and find that a supplier’s future investments (including inventory, R&D, and tangible asset investments) decrease with its customer’s current short interest. This negative relation is stronger when the supplier faces greater difficulty in assessing its customer’s business fundamentals and when short interest is more likely to indicate longlasting deterioration in the customer’s fundamentals. Additional analysis does not support the alternative explanation that the supplier adjusts investments in response to unfavorable information obtained via …


The Politics Of Bank Opacity, Heng Yue, Liandong Zhang, Qinlin Zhong Apr 2022

The Politics Of Bank Opacity, Heng Yue, Liandong Zhang, Qinlin Zhong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The distribution of power in the political system shapes the financial reporting opacity of banks. Specifically, banks located in states with senators on the Senate Banking Committee (BC senators) have greater abnormal loan loss provisions than banks in other states. The result is stronger for larger banks and banks with higher risk. In addition, BC senators have a negative effect on the likelihood of banks in their home states receiving enforcement actions, and, more importantly, this effect is stronger for more opaque banks. These findings suggest that politicians, regulators, and banks use opaque financial reporting to facilitate regulatory forbearance. Moreover, …


Non-Gaap Earnings And Stock Price Crash Risk, Charles Hsu, Rencheng Wang, Benjamin C. Whipple Apr 2022

Non-Gaap Earnings And Stock Price Crash Risk, Charles Hsu, Rencheng Wang, Benjamin C. Whipple

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate whether non-GAAP earnings disclosures increase stock price crash risk. Consistent with non-GAAP disclosures allowing managers to inflate investors' perceptions about firm performance, our results indicate that income increasing non-GAAP reporting increases crash risk. We also find that managers can use non-GAAP reporting as a substitute for earnings management to withhold bad news from investors (the traditional explanation for crashes). Finally, we find a positive association between non-GAAP reporting and the likelihood of subsequent events that can trigger a crash. Overall, our evidence is consistent with some non-GAAP disclosures exposing investors to risks of large and sudden price declines.(c) …


Insider Sales Under The Threat Of Short Sellers: New Hypothesis And New Tests, Kemin Wang, Rencheng Wang, K. C. John Wei, Bohui Zhang, Yi Zhou Mar 2022

Insider Sales Under The Threat Of Short Sellers: New Hypothesis And New Tests, Kemin Wang, Rencheng Wang, K. C. John Wei, Bohui Zhang, Yi Zhou

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using the Regulation SHO program as a quasi-experiment, we document that the threat of short selling has a negative effect on the volume of opportunistic insider selling and a positive effect on its profitability for each transaction. These effects are stronger among firms with higher litigation risk, greater media coverage, and executives who have more of their firms' stock-related holdings. We further find robust evidence when we extend the analyses to short selling deregulations in the Chinese and Hong Kong stock exchanges. Overall, our findings suggest that short sellers play a disciplinary role in opportunistic insider selling.


Digital Innovation: A Catalyst And Enabler Of Achieving Business Sustainability, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow, Shankararaman, Venky Jul 2021

Digital Innovation: A Catalyst And Enabler Of Achieving Business Sustainability, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow, Shankararaman, Venky

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Today, many companies are actively incorporating sustainability principles into their business strategies. This movement is likely to have resulted from an ongoing shift in the demands and behaviours of customers, employees, partners, governments, investors and other stakeholders that expect companies to act with integrity and in a way that benefits wider society. The emphasis on achieving sustainability goals has led to increasing adoption of “triple bottom line”, which suggests that companies ought to pay attention to more than just the bottom-line, but also measure their environmental and societal impacts that may help to achieve long-term business growth. Typically, companies with …


Preparing Accountants Of The Future: A Programme In Accounting Data And Analytics, Poh Sun Seow, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan Jul 2021

Preparing Accountants Of The Future: A Programme In Accounting Data And Analytics, Poh Sun Seow, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The accounting profession is rapidly evolving due to technological innovations. Technologies such as the Internet of things, smart sensors, cloud computing, robotics, and artificial intelligence are combining to disrupt the way that businesses operate. It is predicted that, over the next decade, information technology (IT) will significantly transform the accounting profession.


Embracing Digital Transformation In Accounting And Finance, Poh Sun Seow, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan, Melvin Yong, Joanna Chek Jul 2021

Embracing Digital Transformation In Accounting And Finance, Poh Sun Seow, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan, Melvin Yong, Joanna Chek

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Digital transformation involves the integration of digital technologies and business processes. Recent developments in digital technologies have provided organisations with the tools to embark on digital transformation encompassing a wide range of business processes and activities. Organisations that can leverage on technology to digitally transform themselves stand to put themselves at a significant competitive advantage relative to their competitors.


Analyst Teams, Bingxu Fang, Ole-Kristian Hope Jun 2021

Analyst Teams, Bingxu Fang, Ole-Kristian Hope

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper examines the impact of teamwork on sell-side analysts’ performance. Using a hand-collected sample of over 50,000 analyst research reports, we find that analyst teams issue more than 70% of annual earnings forecasts. In contrast, most prior research implicitly assumes that forecasts are issued by individual analysts. We document that analyst teams generate more accurate earnings forecasts than individual analysts and that the stock market reacts more strongly to forecast revisions issued by teams. Analyst teams also cover more firms, issue earnings forecasts more frequently, and issue less stale forecasts. Analysts working in teams are more likely to be …


Happy Analysts, Ole-Kristian Hope, Congcong Li, An-Ping Lin, Maryjane Rabier Apr 2021

Happy Analysts, Ole-Kristian Hope, Congcong Li, An-Ping Lin, Maryjane Rabier

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper is the first to investigate the role of work-life balance in financial analysts' performance and career advancement. Using a large sample of Glassdoor reviews by financial analysts, we find a significant non-linear relation between perceived work-life balance and analyst performance and analyst career advancement. Specifically, when perceived work-life balance is relatively low, an increase in work-life balance is associated with better analyst performance and career advancement; however, when perceived work-life balance is already high, a further increase in work-life balance is associated with worse analyst performance and career advancement.


Cryptocurrency Framework, Pearl Hock-Neo Tan, Tracey Chunqi Zhang Feb 2021

Cryptocurrency Framework, Pearl Hock-Neo Tan, Tracey Chunqi Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

An interesting puzzle exists with respect to the accounting treatment of cryptocurrencies. The announcement in October 2020 that PayPal was launching its own cryptocurrency service suggests growing acceptability. However, there is no standard that deals with them specifically. We review the classification appropriateness for cryptocurrencies under IAS 2, IAS 7, IFRS 9, and IAS 38. There is a lack of a consensus on the accounting classification and measurement of cryptocurrencies. A framework is needed to classify cryptocurrencies by underlying attributes and to require the appropriate accounting treatment for each classification.


International Tax Competition And Foreign Direct Investment In The Asia-Pacific Region: A Panel Data Analysis, Chengwei Xu, Alfred M. Wu Dec 2020

International Tax Competition And Foreign Direct Investment In The Asia-Pacific Region: A Panel Data Analysis, Chengwei Xu, Alfred M. Wu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how a country's competitive tax policy influences its inward foreign direct investments (FDI) in the Asia–Pacific region, even when given particular constraints (e.g., population, public governance, skilled labor, and so on) exist. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses the system GMM estimation approach to test the hypothesis. Data on FDI, corporate income tax, and various confounding factors were drawn from Ernst and Young's worldwide corporate tax guide, the World Bank, and other sources to create a panel of 28 economies over the period 2000–2016. Findings: The present research confirms the negative association between …


The Effects Of Mifid Ii On Sell-Side Analysts, Buy-Side Analysts, And Firms, Bingxu Fang, Ole-Kristian Hope, Zhongwei Huang, Rucsandra Moldovan Aug 2020

The Effects Of Mifid Ii On Sell-Side Analysts, Buy-Side Analysts, And Firms, Bingxu Fang, Ole-Kristian Hope, Zhongwei Huang, Rucsandra Moldovan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper provides early but broad empirical evidence on MiFID II, which requires investment firms to unbundle investment research from other costs they charge to clients. Employing difference-in-differences matched-sample research designs with firm fixed effects, we find a decrease in the number of sell-side analysts covering European firms after MiFID II implementation, particularly for firms that are less important to the sell-side. However, research quality improves; specifically, individual analyst forecasts are more accurate and stock recommendations garner greater market reactions. In addition, sell-side analysts seem to cater more to the buy-side after MiFID II by providing industry recommendations along with …


Gender And Beauty In The Financial Analyst Profession: Evidence From The United States And China, Congcong Li, An-Ping Lin, Hai Lu, Kevin Veenstra Jun 2020

Gender And Beauty In The Financial Analyst Profession: Evidence From The United States And China, Congcong Li, An-Ping Lin, Hai Lu, Kevin Veenstra

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine how gender and beauty affect the likelihood of being voted as an All-Star in the financial analyst profession in both the United States and China. We find that female analysts are more likely to be voted as All-Star analysts in the United States, but good-looking female U.S. analysts are less likely to be voted as All-Stars. The conclusion is the opposite for Chinese analysts. We find that female analysts in China are less likely to be voted as All-Stars, but the likelihood increases with their facial attractiveness. These findings implicate a beauty penalty for female analysts in the …


China's Anti‐Corruption Campaign And Financial Reporting Quality, Ole-Kristian Hope, Heng Yue, Qinlin Zhong Jun 2020

China's Anti‐Corruption Campaign And Financial Reporting Quality, Ole-Kristian Hope, Heng Yue, Qinlin Zhong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the impact of China’s anti-corruption campaign on firm-level financial reporting quality (FRQ). As an important component of the anti-corruption campaign, in October 2013, “Rule 18” was issued to prohibit party and government officials from serving as directors for publicly listed firms. The regulation led to a large number of official directors resigning from their roles as directors involuntarily. As such, Rule 18 has effectively weakened, if not fullydiscontinued, the political connections of the firms that previously hired officials as directors. Our empirical analyses employ a difference-in-differences research design with firm fixed effects and PSM to examine the pre- …


Happy Analysts, Ole-Kristian Hope, Congcong Li, An-Ping Lin, Maryjane Rabier Feb 2020

Happy Analysts, Ole-Kristian Hope, Congcong Li, An-Ping Lin, Maryjane Rabier

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper is the first to investigate the role of work-life balance in financial analysts’ performance and career advancement. Using a large sample of Glassdoor reviews by financial analysts, we find a significant non-linear relation between work-life balance satisfaction and analyst performance and analyst career advancement. Specifically, when work-life balance satisfaction is relatively low, an increase in work-life balance is associated with better analyst performance and career advancement; however, when perceived work-life balance is already high, a further increase in work-life balance is associated with worse analyst performance and career advancement.


Cross-Industry Information Sharing And Analyst Performance, Allen Huang, An-Ping Lin, Amy Zang Jan 2020

Cross-Industry Information Sharing And Analyst Performance, Allen Huang, An-Ping Lin, Amy Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study shows that analyst research benefits from the sharing of information about economically connected industries among colleagues. Measuring the intensity of potential information sharing with the level of economic connection between an analyst’s industry and her colleagues’ industries, we find that it is positively correlated with an analyst’s earnings forecast accuracy, stock recommendation profitability, coverage breadth, and report frequency after controlling for other determinants including broker or analyst fixed effects. We also find that analysts are more likely to issue reports when highly connected colleagues produce information. We show that sharing information with colleagues covering downstream (upstream) industries benefits …


Chief Financial Officer Demographic Characteristics And Fraudulent Financial Reporting In China, Jinghui Sun, Pamela Kent, Baolei Qi, Jiwei Wang Dec 2019

Chief Financial Officer Demographic Characteristics And Fraudulent Financial Reporting In China, Jinghui Sun, Pamela Kent, Baolei Qi, Jiwei Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate whether management's cognitions, values and perceptions are associated with fraud for 18 863 firm-years for Chinese listed firms from 2000 to 2014. Demographic characteristics of the chief financial officer (CFO) are used as proxies for management's cognitions, values and perceptions. We find that fraudulent financial reporting is higher when CFOs are younger, male, and have lower education backgrounds. An analysis of inflated earnings, fictitious assets, material omissions and other material misstatements provide similar results, with the exception that CFOs with higher education levels are associated with more inflated earnings. Accounting and Finance


Regulations And Brain Drain: Evidence From Wall Street Star Analysts’ Career Choices, Yuyan Guan, Congcong Li, Hai Lu, Franco Wong Dec 2019

Regulations And Brain Drain: Evidence From Wall Street Star Analysts’ Career Choices, Yuyan Guan, Congcong Li, Hai Lu, Franco Wong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The Global Settlement, along with related regulations in the early 2000s, prohibits the use of investment banking revenue to fund equity research and compensate equity analysts. We find that all-star analysts from investment banks are more likely to exit the profession or move to the buy side after the regulations. The departed star analysts’ earnings revisions and stock recommendations are more informative than those of the remaining analysts who followed the same companies. To the extent that star analysts are superior to their nonstar counterparts in terms of research ability and ability to inform the market, the exit of star …


Online Learning Tool On External Financing Needs, Yuanto Kusnadi Dec 2018

Online Learning Tool On External Financing Needs, Yuanto Kusnadi

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In collaboration with colleagues at the Centre ofTeaching Excellence (CTE), I have developed an innovative online learningobject on External Financing Needs. This tool is designed to introduce a noveland refreshing way in teaching accounting and finance concepts to students andto create a more interactive learning experience in the classroom. The online learning tool is used in the two courses:Accounting for Entrepreneurs and Financial Management, to explain the relevantconcepts related to financial forecasting and financial planning. One unique feature about the learning object is that itprovides instantaneousfeedback to students as they can learn whether the numbers theyprovide are correct/wrong (as indicated …


Comments On Discussion Paper "Financial Instruments With Characteristics Of Equity" (Fice), Pearl Hock-Neo Tan Oct 2018

Comments On Discussion Paper "Financial Instruments With Characteristics Of Equity" (Fice), Pearl Hock-Neo Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Comments are given on the Discussion Paper issued by the International Accounting Standards Board in June 2018 on Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity. The comments are given in response to the Board's public invitation for feedback on the Discussion Paper. The comments convey the author's concerns about the Discussion Paper's proposals in the light of the conceptual framework of financial reporting and a fundamental understanding of what equity and liability is. The comments propose approaches that the Board may consider in its subsequent development of its proposals.


Leveling The Playing Field Between Large And Small Institutions: Evidence From The Sec’S Xbrl Mandate, Nilabhra Bhattacharya, Young Jun Cho, Jae B. Kim Sep 2018

Leveling The Playing Field Between Large And Small Institutions: Evidence From The Sec’S Xbrl Mandate, Nilabhra Bhattacharya, Young Jun Cho, Jae B. Kim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate how XBRL adoption affects smaller institutions’ access to financial statement information relative to their larger counterparts. We examine three aspects of trading responsiveness: abnormal trading volume, response speed to 10-K information, and decision to trade immediately following the 10-K filing. With regard to all three aspects of trading responsiveness, we find that small institutions’ responsiveness to 10-K news increases significantly more relative to the change experienced by large institutions from the pre- to post-XBRL periods. We further document that small institutions’ stock picking skills in the 10-K filing period increase more compared to those of large institutions following …


Debt Heterogeneity And Covenants, Yun Lou, Clemens A. Otto May 2018

Debt Heterogeneity And Covenants, Yun Lou, Clemens A. Otto

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Coordination failure among owners of heterogeneous debt types increases distress costs. Covenants reduce expected distress costs by lowering the probability of liquidity shortages, increasing liquidation values, and incentivizing creditor monitoring. We predict and find that new debt contracts include more covenants when borrowers' existing debt structures are more heterogeneous. Our findings suggest that covenants are not only used to address creditor-shareholder conflicts but also to reduce the expected costs of coordination failure among creditors. Further, our results indicate a dynamic component missing from static debt structure models: Debt heterogeneity entails additional covenants (i.e., constraints) when raising future debt.


The Equity-Financing Channel, The Catering Channel, And Corporate Investment: International Evidence, Yuanto Kusnadi, John K. C. Wei Dec 2017

The Equity-Financing Channel, The Catering Channel, And Corporate Investment: International Evidence, Yuanto Kusnadi, John K. C. Wei

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine how stock market mispricing affects corporate investment in an internationalsetting. We find that investment is more sensitive to stock prices for equity-dependent firms thanfor non-equity-dependent firms in our international sample. Investment is also more sensitive tostock prices for firms located in countries with more developed capital markets (i.e., lower costsof raising capital), higher share turnover (i.e., shorter shareholder horizons), and higher R&Dintensity (i.e., more opaque assets). More importantly, the positive relation between equitydependence and the sensitivity of investment to stock prices is more pronounced for firmslocated in these same countries. These findings are consistent with the equity-financinghypothesis and …


Making Financial Disclosure More Readable, Clarence Goh, Poh Sun Seow, Gary Pan Oct 2017

Making Financial Disclosure More Readable, Clarence Goh, Poh Sun Seow, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

There are many benefits tohaving disclosures written in plain English. Investors would be more likely tounderstand the disclosures and to make informed judgments. Investment analystswould also be able to make more timely and accurate recommendations to theirclients if they can understand such disclosures more quickly and easily


Effects Of Informal Institutions On The Relationship Between Accounting Measures Of Risk And Bank Distress, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo Jul 2017

Effects Of Informal Institutions On The Relationship Between Accounting Measures Of Risk And Bank Distress, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate the effects of informal institutions (trust, religiosity and the media) on the relationship between accounting-based risk measures and bank distress. We conduct our analysis in two stages. In the first stage, we extend the prior literature by documenting a link between accounting-based risk measures and bank distress during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. In particular, given the environment characterized by rapid growth in financial innovation and complex financial transactions prior to the crisis, simple accounting-based risk measures continue to predict bank distress during this crisis period. In the second stage, we address our main research question related to the …


The Equity-Financing Channel, The Catering Channel, And Corporate Investment: International Evidence, Yuanto Kusnadi, K.C. John Wei Apr 2017

The Equity-Financing Channel, The Catering Channel, And Corporate Investment: International Evidence, Yuanto Kusnadi, K.C. John Wei

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine how stock market mispricing affectscorporate investment in an international setting. We find that investment ismore sensitive to stock prices for equity-dependent firms than for non-equity-dependentfirms in our international sample. Investment is also more sensitive to stockprices for firms located in countries with more developed capital markets (i.e.,lower costs of raising capital), higher share turnover (i.e., shortershareholder horizons), and higher R&D intensity (i.e., more opaque assets). More importantly, the positive relation between equitydependence and the sensitivity of investment to stock prices is more pronouncedfor firms located in these same countries. These findings are consistent withthe equity-financing hypothesis and the …