IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/revfin/v23y2014i1p10-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Opaque financial reports and R2: Revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Datta, Sudip
  • Iskandar-Datta, Mai
  • Singh, Vivek

Abstract

In this study, we revisit the link between R2 (synchronicity) and earnings management (opacity) because of the importance of the ongoing debate on the relation between idiosyncratic risk and earnings management in the finance and accounting literatures. Hutton et al. (J. Financial Economics, 2009) provide evidence of a positive link between opacity and R2. They interpret their finding to imply that firms with high R2 (high synchronicity) have less firm-specific information impounded in their stock price. Our results for this relationship fail to unequivocally support the results reported in Hutton et al. (2009). We show that their results are not only time variant but also not robust to the alternative empirical technique recommended for panel data by Petersen (2009) and alternative estimation of discretionary accruals adjusted for firm performance prescribed by Kothari et al. (2005). We also find no support for a convex relation between idiosyncratic risk and opacity. The findings documented in this study substantially revise some of Hutton et al.'s findings in this important and growing area of research.

Suggested Citation

  • Datta, Sudip & Iskandar-Datta, Mai & Singh, Vivek, 2014. "Opaque financial reports and R2: Revisited," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 10-17.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:revfin:v:23:y:2014:i:1:p:10-17
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rfe.2013.08.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1058330013000542
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rfe.2013.08.001?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. Francis, Jennifer & LaFond, Ryan & Olsson, Per & Schipper, Katherine, 2005. "The market pricing of accruals quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 295-327, June.
    2. Ettredge, Michael & Toolson, Richard & Hall, Steve & Na, Chongkil, 1996. "Behavior of earnings, stock returns, accruals, and analysts' forecasts following negative annual earnings," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-162.
    3. Guojin Gong & Henock Louis & Amy X. Sun, 2008. "Earnings Management and Firm Performance Following Open‐Market Repurchases," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 947-986, April.
    4. 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.
    5. Jin, Li & Myers, Stewart C., 2006. "R2 around the world: New theory and new tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 257-292, February.
    6. Guay, WR & Kothari, SP & Watts, RL, 1996. "A market-based evaluation of discretionary accrual models," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34, pages 83-105.
    7. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Li, Yinghua & Zhang, Liandong, 2011. "CFOs versus CEOs: Equity incentives and crashes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 713-730, September.
    8. Joseph Gerakos, 2012. "Discussion of Detecting Earnings Management: A New Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 335-347, May.
    9. José-Miguel Gaspar, 2006. "Idiosyncratic Volatility and Product Market Competition," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(6), pages 3125-3152, November.
    10. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    11. Dechow, Patricia M. & Kothari, S. P. & L. Watts, Ross, 1998. "The relation between earnings and cash flows," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 133-168, May.
    12. Söhnke M. Bartram & Gregory Brown & René M. Stulz, 2012. "Why Are U.S. Stocks More Volatile?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1329-1370, August.
    13. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    14. Patricia M. Dechow & Amy P. Hutton & Jung Hoon Kim & Richard G. Sloan, 2012. "Detecting Earnings Management: A New Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 275-334, May.
    15. Paul J. Irvine & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2009. "Idiosyncratic Return Volatility, Cash Flows, and Product Market Competition," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1149-1177, March.
    16. Guay, W. & Kothari, S.P. & Watts, R.L., 1996. "A Market-Based Evaluation of Discretionary-Accrual Models," Papers 96-01, Rochester, Business - Financial Research and Policy Studies.
    17. Nelson, Karen K. & Barth, Mary E. & Cram, Donald, 2001. "Accruals and the Prediction of Future Cash Flows," Research Papers 1594r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    18. Dasgupta, Sudipto & Gan, Jie & Gao, Ning, 2010. "Transparency, Price Informativeness, and Stock Return Synchronicity: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(5), pages 1189-1220, October.
    19. Rajgopal, Shiva & Venkatachalam, Mohan, 2011. "Financial reporting quality and idiosyncratic return volatility," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 1-20, February.
    20. Hutton, Amy P. & Marcus, Alan J. & Tehranian, Hassan, 2009. "Opaque financial reports, R2, and crash risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 67-86, October.
    21. Artyom Durnev & Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung & Paul Zarowin, 2003. "Does Greater Firm‐Specific Return Variation Mean More or Less Informed Stock Pricing?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 797-836, December.
    22. Rajgopal, Shiva & Venkatachalam, Mohan, 2011. "Financial reporting quality and idiosyncratic return volatility," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 1-20.
    23. Teoh, Siew Hong & Welch, Ivo & Wong, T. J., 1998. "Earnings management and the underperformance of seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 63-99, October.
    24. Kenneth D. West, 1988. "Bubbles, Fads, and Stock Price Volatility Tests: A Partial Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 2574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Healy, P, 1996. "Discussion of a market-based evaluation of discretionary accrual models," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34, pages 107-115.
    26. Michael Kirschenheiter & Nahum D. Melumad, 2002. "Can “Big Bath” and Earnings Smoothing Co‐exist as Equilibrium Financial Reporting Strategies?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 761-796, June.
    27. Subramanyam, K. R., 1996. "The pricing of discretionary accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-3), pages 249-281, October.
    28. John M. Griffin & Patrick J. Kelly & Federico Nardari, 2010. "Do Market Efficiency Measures Yield Correct Inferences? A Comparison of Developed and Emerging Markets," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(8), pages 3225-3277, August.
    29. Mandira Roy Sankar & K. R. Subramanyam, 2001. "Reporting Discretion and Private Information Communication through Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 365-386, September.
    30. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    31. Yu, Fang (Frank), 2008. "Analyst coverage and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 245-271, May.
    32. Kang, Sh & Sivaramakrishnan, K, 1995. "Issues In Testing Earnings Management And An Instrumental Variable Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 353-367.
    33. West, Kenneth D, 1988. " Bubbles, Fads and Stock Price Volatility Tests: A Partial Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(3), pages 639-656, July.
    34. Paul J. Irvine & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2009. "Idiosyncratic Return Volatility, Cash Flows, and Product Market Competition," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1149-1177.
    35. Chan, Kalok & Hameed, Allaudeen, 2006. "Stock price synchronicity and analyst coverage in emerging markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 115-147, April.
    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. Filzen, Joshua J. & Schutte, Maria Gabriela, 2017. "Comovement, financial reporting complexity, and information markets: Evidence from the effect of changes in 10-Q lengths on internet search volumes and peer correlations," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 19-37.
    2. Kitagawa, Norio & Okuda, Shin’ya, 2016. "Management Forecasts, Idiosyncratic Risk, and the Information Environment," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 487-503.
    3. Marco Navone & Fernando Zapatero, 2014. "Why Do Financial Analysts Strive to Be Irrelevant? Career Concerns and Endogenous Coverage Termination," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1507, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    4. Marco Maria Mattei & Petya Platikanova, 2017. "Do product market threats affect analyst forecast precision?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 1628-1665, December.
    5. Sebastian Utz, 2018. "Over‐investment or risk mitigation? Corporate social responsibility in Asia‐Pacific, Europe, Japan, and the United States," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 167-193, April.
    6. Petya Platikanova & Kazbi Soonawalla, 2020. "Who monitors opaque borrowers? Debt specialisation, institutional ownership, and information opacity," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(2), pages 1867-1904, June.

    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. Sudip Datta & Mai Iskandar‐Datta & Vivek Singh, 2014. "Opaque financial reports and R2: Revisited," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(1), pages 10-17, January.
    2. Chen, Changling & Kim, Jeong-Bon & Yao, Li, 2017. "Earnings smoothing: Does it exacerbate or constrain stock price crash risk?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 36-54.
    3. Ana Isabel Ramos Domingues & António de Melo da Costa Cerqueira & Elísio Fernando Moreira Brandão, 2016. "Idiosyncratic Volatility and Earnings Quality: Evidence from United Kingdom," FEP Working Papers 579, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    4. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    5. Joachim Gassen & Hollis A. Skaife & David Veenman, 2020. "Illiquidity and the Measurement of Stock Price Synchronicity," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(1), pages 419-456, March.
    6. Chue, Timothy K. & Gul, Ferdinand A. & Mian, G. Mujtaba, 2019. "Aggregate investor sentiment and stock return synchronicity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    7. Nyanine Chuele Fonou-Dombeu & Josue Mbonigaba & Odunayo Magret Olarewaju & Bomi Cyril Nomlala, 2022. "Earnings quality measures and stock return volatility in South Africa," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    9. Allayannis, George & Simko, Paul J., 2022. "Discretionary earnings smoothing, credit quality, and firm value," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    10. Hutton, Amy P. & Marcus, Alan J. & Tehranian, Hassan, 2009. "Opaque financial reports, R2, and crash risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 67-86, October.
    11. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    12. Boubaker, Sabri & Mansali, Hatem & Rjiba, Hatem, 2014. "Large controlling shareholders and stock price synchronicity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 80-96.
    13. Kee-Hong Bae & Jin-Mo Kim & Yang Ni, 2013. "Is Firm-specific Return Variation a Measure of Information Efficiency?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 407-445, December.
    14. Zhang, Wei & Li, Xiao & Shen, Dehua & Teglio, Andrea, 2016. "R2 and idiosyncratic volatility: Which captures the firm-specific return variation?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 298-304.
    15. Park, Heewoo & Kim, Tong Suk & Park, Yuen Jung, 2021. "Asymmetric information in the equity market and information flow from the equity market to the CDS market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    16. Dichev, Ilia D. & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2013. "Earnings quality: Evidence from the field," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 1-33.
    17. Yaowen Shan & Stephen Taylor & Terry Walter, 2013. "Fundamentals or Managerial Discretion? The Relationship between Accrual Variability and Future Stock Return Volatility," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 49(4), pages 441-475, December.
    18. (Grace) Qing Hao & Keming Li, 2016. "The Bright Side of Discretionary Accruals: Evidence from Finance and Innovation," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(4), pages 540-575, September.
    19. Doukas, John A. & Wang, Liu, 2014. "Does the bonding effect matter in a more integrated capital market world?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 162-184.
    20. Xiumin Martin & Ron Shalev, 2017. "Target Firm-Specific Information and Acquisition Efficiency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 672-690, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Earnings management; Opacity; R2; Discretionary accruals estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
    • D89 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Other
    • G19 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Other
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:revfin:v:23:y:2014:i:1:p:10-17. 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/inca/620170 .

    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.