时间：2022年12月22日（周四）下午2:30

讲座地点：腾讯会议：114 510 386

主办单位：武汉大学经济与管理学院会计系

讲座内容摘要：

Earnings Management via Not-wholly-owned Subsidiaries

We investigate a new mechanism of earnings management: Income shifting from not-wholly-owned subsidiaries to help the parent company avoid losses at the expense of subsidiaries. Consolidated net income attributable to the parent company (i.e., net income) increases through this mechanism, as the parent company enjoys the full amount of the shifted earnings rather than sharing them with minority investors. We design an empirical model to directly estimate the amount of income shifted from subsidiaries to parent firms. Employing this measure, we find that firms opportunistically decrease earnings of their not-wholly-owned subsidiaries to manage net income upward to avoid losses. The results are stronger for firms with high non-controlling ownership, firms with large-size subsidiaries, firms with strong influence over not-wholly-owned subsidiaries, and firms with a high level of related-party transactions. Our results are robust to alternative research designs, including controls for within-firm variations, alternative earnings thresholds, propensity score matching, and entropy balancing techniques. Our mechanism of earnings management complements traditional accrual or real earnings management and is generalizable to other earnings management scenarios, such as share pledging.

Moving towards Principles-Based Accounting Standards: The Impact of the New Revenue Standard on the Quality of Accrual Accounting

The new revenue standard (ASU 2014-09, codified in ASC 606 and ASC 340-40) establishes a comprehensive framework on accounting for contracts with customers and replaces most existing revenue recognition rules. It is an important milestone of moving towards the principles-based accounting standards proposed by SEC in 2003. Using as-reported data from structured filings to construct aggregate accruals that are potentially affected by the new revenue standard (i.e., sales-related accruals), I find that the new revenue standard increases the quality of sales-related accruals, as measured by future cash flow predictability. The increased cash flow predictability comes not only from the guidance on contract revenue (ASC 606) but also from the guidance on contract costs (ASC 340-40). The effects concentrate among firms conducting long-term sales contracts, especially over longer forecast horizons. Further analysis shows that the new revenue standard also increases the combined information content of financial statements and the capital market efficiency. However, the new revenue standard is not immune to earnings management. Firms use the discretion within the principles-based standard to manage earnings when they face strong manipulation incentives.

2、主讲人简介

张新一，中山大学管理学院助理教授，清华大学管理学博士。研究聚焦于资本市场、经理人激励、区块链经济等相关议题。研究成果发表或录用在《管理世界》、《经济学（季刊）》、《会计研究》等国内外期刊。主持国家自然科学基金青年项目。曾获清华大学优秀博士学位论文等荣誉。

贺惠宇，新加坡管理大学会计学博士研究生（2018年至今）。本科毕业于上海财经大学，获管理学学士（会计）学位。研究方向为会计准则与信息披露对公司信息环境和实际投资的影响，内部人交易的规范及影响。