IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v76y2023i1s0165410122000945.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting conservatism and relational contracting

Author

Listed:
  • Glover, Jonathan
  • Xue, Hao

Abstract

This paper develops a positive role for accounting conservatism in fostering relational contracts between two agents in a two-period model of moral hazard. Building on Kreps (1996), the principal in our model designs a conservative measurement system and optimal contracts to create multiple equilibria that foster a team-based corporate culture. Accruals introduced by conservatism increase each agent's stake in the future of the relationship when it matters most—when it is going badly. This makes staying in the relationship worthwhile for the agents, even if they plan to play a low payoff equilibrium in the second period to punish first-period free-riding. In turn, this allows the principal to use lower-powered (and less costly) team incentives in the first period of the relationship. In contrast, deferred compensation increases each agent's stake in the future of the relationship when it is going well, making it less efficient in fostering relationships.

Suggested Citation

  • Glover, Jonathan & Xue, Hao, 2023. "Accounting conservatism and relational contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:76:y:2023:i:1:s0165410122000945
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2022.101571
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165410122000945
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jacceco.2022.101571?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arya, Anil & Fellingham, John & Glover, Jonathan, 1997. "Teams, repeated tasks, and implicit incentives," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 7-30, May.
    2. Jonathan Levin, 2003. "Relational Incentive Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 835-857, June.
    3. W. Bentley MacLeod, 2007. "Reputations, Relationships, and Contract Enforcement," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 595-628, September.
    4. Mahfuz Chy & Ole-Kristian Hope, 2021. "Real effects of auditor conservatism," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 730-771, June.
    5. Drew Fudenberg & David Levine & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem With Imperfect Public Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 12, pages 231-273, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Yeon-Koo Che & Seung-Weon Yoo, 2001. "Optimal Incentives for Teams," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 525-541, June.
    8. Jing LI, 2013. "Accounting Conservatism and Debt Contracts: Efficient Liquidation and Covenant Renegotiation," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 1082-1098, September.
    9. Marina Halac, 2015. "Investing in a relationship," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(1), pages 165-185, March.
    10. Gao, Pingyang & Jiang, Xu, 2020. "The economic consequences of discrete recognition and continuous measurement," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    11. Guay, Wayne R. & Kepler, John D. & Tsui, David, 2019. "The role of executive cash bonuses in providing individual and team incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 441-471.
    12. Hui, Kai Wai & Klasa, Sandy & Yeung, P. Eric, 2012. "Corporate suppliers and customers and accounting conservatism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 115-135.
    13. Ryan Lafond & Sugata Roychowdhury, 2008. "Managerial Ownership and Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 101-135, March.
    14. Mueller, Gg, 1964. "Valuing Inventories At Other Than Historical Costs - Some International Differences," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(2), pages 148-157.
    15. Clinch, G, 1991. "Employee Compensation And Firms Research-And-Development Activity," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 59-78.
    16. Benoit, Jean-Pierre & Krishna, Vijay, 1993. "Renegotiation in Finitely Repeated Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(2), pages 303-323, March.
    17. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    18. Zhang, Xiao-Jun, 2000. "Conservative accounting and equity valuation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 125-149, February.
    19. Frank Gigler & Chandra Kanodia & Haresh Sapra & Raghu Venugopalan, 2009. "Accounting Conservatism and the Efficiency of Debt Contracts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 767-797, June.
    20. Qi Chen & Thomas Hemmer & Yun Zhang, 2007. "On the Relation between Conservatism in Accounting Standards and Incentives for Earnings Management," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 541-565, June.
    21. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2005. "The economic implications of corporate financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 3-73, December.
    22. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1995. "Complementarities and fit strategy, structure, and organizational change in manufacturing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 179-208, April.
    23. Penman, Stephen & Zhang, Xiao-Jun, 2020. "A theoretical analysis connecting conservative accounting to the cost of capital," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    24. Basu, Sudipta, 1997. "The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 3-37, December.
    25. Ronald A. Dye, 2002. "Classifications Manipulation and Nash Accounting Standards," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1125-1162, September.
    26. Benoit, Jean-Pierre & Krishna, Vijay, 1985. "Finitely Repeated Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(4), pages 905-922, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Henry Jarva & Matthijs Lof, 2024. "Identifying accounting conservatism in the presence of skewness," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 553-577, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    2. Sebastian Kronenberger & Volker Laux, 2022. "Conservative Accounting, Audit Quality, and Litigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(3), pages 2349-2362, March.
    3. Jonathan Glover & Eunhee Kim, 2021. "Optimal Team Composition: Diversity to Foster Implicit Team Incentives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5800-5820, September.
    4. Venky Nagar & Madhav V. Rajan & Korok Ray, 2018. "An information-based model for the differential treatment of gains and losses," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 622-653, June.
    5. Laux, Volker & Ray, Korok, 2020. "Effects of accounting conservatism on investment efficiency and innovation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1).
    6. James M. Malcomson, 2012. "Relational Incentive Contracts [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    7. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2019. "Relational Contracts, Multiple Agents, and Correlated Outputs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5360-5370, November.
    8. Kobayashi, Hajime & Ohta, Katsunori & Sekiguchi, Tadashi, 2016. "Optimal sharing rules in repeated partnerships," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 311-323.
    9. Richard Barker & Anne McGeachin, 2015. "An Analysis of Concepts and Evidence on the Question of Whether IFRS Should be Conservative," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 51(2), pages 169-207, June.
    10. Judson Caskey & Volker Laux, 2017. "Corporate Governance, Accounting Conservatism, and Manipulation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(2), pages 424-437, February.
    11. Araceli Mora & Martin Walker, 2015. "The implications of research on accounting conservatism for accounting standard setting," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 620-650, August.
    12. Sudipta Basu & Yi Liang, 2019. "Director–Liability–Reduction Laws and Conditional Conservatism," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 889-917, September.
    13. Umair Bhutta & Jéssica Nunes Martins & Mário Nuno Mata & Ali Raza & Rui Miguel Dantas & Anabela Batista Correia & Muhammad Rafiq, 2021. "Intellectual Structure and Evolution of Accounting Conservatism Research: Past Trends and Future Research Suggestions," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-13, June.
    14. Xu Jiang, 2016. "Biases in Accounting and Nonaccounting Information: Substitutes or Complements?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(5), pages 1297-1330, December.
    15. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    16. Naveed Razzaq, Zhang Rui, 2018. "Does Conditional Conservatism affect the Cost of Capital? Evidence from China," Journal of Finance and Economics Research, Geist Science, Iqra University, Faculty of Business Administration, vol. 3(1), pages 57-70, March.
    17. Archana Jain & Chinmay Jain & Ashok Robin, 2020. "Does accounting conservatism deter short sellers?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 1075-1100, April.
    18. Luis Rayo, 2002. "Relational Team Incentives and Ownership," Theory workshop papers 357966000000000087, UCLA Department of Economics.
    19. Tri Tri Nguyen & Chau Minh Duong & Nguyet Thi Minh Nguyen & Hung Quang Bui, 2020. "Accounting conservatism and banking expertise on board of directors," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 501-539, August.
    20. Göx, Robert F. & Wagenhofer, Alfred, 2009. "Optimal impairment rules," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 2-16, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:76:y:2023:i:1:s0165410122000945. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.