The changing time-series properties of earnings, cash flows and accruals: Has financial reporting become more conservative?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Givoly, D; Hayn, C
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University of California System; University of California Irvine
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101
• DOI: 10.1016/S0165-4101(00)00024-0
• 发表日期: 2000
• 关键词: VALUE-RELEVANCE; information-content; MARKET; Timeliness

摘要

This paper documents changes in the patterns of earnings, cash flows and accruals over the last four decades. In the absence of a generally accepted definition of conservatism, a number of measures of reporting conservatism are identified and examined. These measures rely on the accumulation of nonoperating accruals, the timeliness of earnings with respect to bad and good news, characteristics of the earnings distribution and the market-to-book ratio, The patterns are consistent with an increase in conservative financial reporting over time. The findings have implications for accounting standard setting, regulation of financial information and financial statement analysis. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: M41; C23; D21; G38; N20.