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The role of accounting conservatism in management forecast bias

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  • Sun, Yan
  • Xu, Weihong

Abstract

We investigate whether management earnings forecasts fully incorporate information in historical accounting conservatism. We find that management earnings forecasts are more optimistic for firms with greater accounting conservatism in the previous year. We further examine whether this conservatism-related optimistic bias in management earnings forecasts varies with managers’ difficulty predicting earnings accurately, managers’ opportunistic incentives, and the firms’ litigation risk. We find that the negative association between management forecast errors and conservatism increases, to various extent, with the firms’ operating cycles, earnings volatility, and the width of forecast range but does not change with proxies for opportunistic incentives or litigation risk. These results suggest that forecast difficulty is the primary reason for managers’ failure to incorporate conservatism fully in their earnings forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Sun, Yan & Xu, Weihong, 2012. "The role of accounting conservatism in management forecast bias," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 64-77.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jocaae:v:8:y:2012:i:2:p:64-77
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2012.05.002
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    3. Wenjun Kuang, 2023. "Accounting comparability and the accuracy of management earnings forecasts in Japan," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 23-07, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.

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