IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/reaccs/v28y2023i2d10.1007_s11142-021-09648-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investigating discretion in executive contracting: extracting private information from valuation allowance decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Katharine D. Drake

    (University of Arizona)

  • Ellen Engel

    (University of Illinios—Chicago)

  • Melissa A. Martin

    (University of Illinios—Chicago)

Abstract

We investigate how boards incorporate private information about managerial performance in compensation and turnover decisions. Building from the literature documenting that loss firms’ publicly available valuation allowance (VA) disclosures contain value-relevant private information, we show that the decision of whether to record a VA also captures contract-relevant private information. We develop an approach to extract a private, firm-specific, time-varying signal of managerial performance by inferring a more positive (negative) private signal when the VA decision suggests the firm expects the loss to be transitory (persistent). Our empirical analyses rely on a joint test of whether the VA decision reflects a private signal of managerial performance and whether the board uses this private information in contracting. Confirming our hypothesis, we document significantly larger discretionary compensation for transitory loss-firm CEOs, relative to persistent loss-firms. We also show that the VA decision informs the weighting of earnings in determining CEO compensation. Additionally, we provide evidence that the likelihood of CEO turnover is lower in transitory loss-firm years, relative to persistent loss-firms. Overall, extracting private information from the VA decision provides an innovative way to extend understanding of how boards use discretion in contracting.

Suggested Citation

  • Katharine D. Drake & Ellen Engel & Melissa A. Martin, 2023. "Investigating discretion in executive contracting: extracting private information from valuation allowance decisions," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 533-569, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:reaccs:v:28:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11142-021-09648-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11142-021-09648-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11142-021-09648-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11142-021-09648-y?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. Ghosh, Aloke (Al) & Wang, Jun, 2019. "Accounting Losses as a Heuristic for Managerial Failure: Evidence from CEO Turnovers," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 877-906, April.
    2. Jennifer L. Brown & Katharine D. Drake & Melissa A. Martin, 2016. "Compensation in the Post†FIN 48 Period: The Case of Contracting on Tax Performance and Uncertainty," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 121-151, March.
    3. Core, John E. & Guay, Wayne & Larcker, David F., 2008. "The power of the pen and executive compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 1-25, April.
    4. Kenneth J. Klassen & Stacie K. Laplante, 2012. "Are U.S. Multinational Corporations Becoming More Aggressive Income Shifters?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 1245-1285, December.
    5. Core, John & Guay, Wayne, 1999. "The use of equity grants to manage optimal equity incentive levels," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 151-184, December.
    6. Michal Matv{e}jka & Kenneth A. Merchant & Wim A. Van der Stede, 2009. "Employment Horizon and the Choice of Performance Measures: Empirical Evidence from Annual Bonus Plans of Loss-Making Entities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(6), pages 890-905, June.
    7. Woo-Jin Chang & Rachel M. Hayes & Stephen A. Hillegeist, 2016. "Financial Distress Risk and New CEO Compensation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 479-501, February.
    8. Warner, Jerold B. & Watts, Ross L. & Wruck, Karen H., 1988. "Stock prices and top management changes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 461-492, January.
    9. Florian S. Peters & Alexander F. Wagner, 2014. "The Executive Turnover Risk Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(4), pages 1529-1563, August.
    10. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2015. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2155-2184, October.
    11. John R. Graham & Si Li & Jiaping Qiu, 2012. "Managerial Attributes and Executive Compensation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(1), pages 144-186.
    12. Leone, Andrew J. & Wu, Joanna Shuang & Zimmerman, Jerold L., 2006. "Asymmetric sensitivity of CEO cash compensation to stock returns," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 167-192, October.
    13. Fabio B. Gaertner, 2014. "CEO After†Tax Compensation Incentives and Corporate Tax Avoidance," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(4), pages 1077-1102, December.
    14. Dan S. Dhaliwal & Steven E. Kaplan & Rick C. Laux & Eric Weisbrod, 2013. "The Information Content of Tax Expense for Firms Reporting Losses," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 135-164, March.
    15. Edith Leung & David Veenman, 2018. "Non‐GAAP Earnings Disclosure in Loss Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 1083-1137, September.
    16. Collins, Daniel W. & Kothari, S. P., 1989. "An analysis of intertemporal and cross-sectional determinants of earnings response coefficients," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 143-181, July.
    17. Rachel M. Hayes & Scott Schaefer, 2000. "Implicit Contracts and the Explanatory Power of Top Executive Compensation for Future Performance," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(2), pages 273-293, Summer.
    18. Baber, William R. & Kang, Sok-Hyon & Kumar, Krishna R., 1998. "Accounting earnings and executive compensation:: The role of earnings persistence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 169-193, May.
    19. Lambert, Ra & Larcker, Df, 1987. "An Analysis Of The Use Of Accounting And Market Measures Of Performance In Executive-Compensation Contracts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25, pages 85-129.
    20. Theodosia Konstantinidi & Peter F. Pope, 2016. "Forecasting Risk in Earnings," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(2), pages 487-525, June.
    21. Gilson, Stuart C & Vetsuypens, Michael R, 1993. "CEO Compensation in Financially Distressed Firms: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 425-458, June.
    22. Naveen D Daniel & Yuanzhi Li & Lalitha Naveen & Francesca Cornelli, 2020. "Symmetry in Pay for Luck," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(7), pages 3174-3204.
    23. Catherine M. Schrand & M. H. Franco Wong, 2003. "Earnings Management Using the Valuation Allowance for Deferred Tax Assets under SFAS No. 109," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(3), pages 579-611, September.
    24. Bushman, Robert M. & Indjejikian, Raffi J. & Smith, Abbie, 1996. "CEO compensation: The role of individual performance evaluation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 161-193, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Emeka T. Nwaeze & Simon S. M. Yang & Q. Jennifer Yin, 2006. "Accounting Information and CEO Compensation: The Role of Cash Flow from Operations in the Presence of Earnings," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(1), pages 227-265, March.
    2. Bloomfield, Matthew & Gipper, Brandon & Kepler, John D. & Tsui, David, 2021. "Cost shielding in executive bonus plans," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2).
    3. Albuquerque, Ana, 2009. "Peer firms in relative performance evaluation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 69-89, October.
    4. Inho Suk & Seungwon Lee & William Kross, 2021. "CEO Turnover and Accounting Earnings: The Role of Earnings Persistence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 3195-3218, May.
    5. Zhiguo He & Si Li & Bin Wei & Jianfeng Yu, 2014. "Uncertainty, Risk, and Incentives: Theory and Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 206-226, January.
    6. Bushman, Robert M. & Smith, Abbie J., 2001. "Financial accounting information and corporate governance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 237-333, December.
    7. Eckbo, B. Espen & Thorburn, Karin S. & Wang, Wei, 2016. "How costly is corporate bankruptcy for the CEO?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 210-229.
    8. Robert Bushman & Ellen Engel & Abbie Smith, 2006. "An Analysis of the Relation between the Stewardship and Valuation Roles of Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 53-83, March.
    9. Michal Matv{e}jka & Kenneth A. Merchant & Wim A. Van der Stede, 2009. "Employment Horizon and the Choice of Performance Measures: Empirical Evidence from Annual Bonus Plans of Loss-Making Entities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(6), pages 890-905, June.
    10. Sung S. Kwon & Jennifer Yin & Gordian A. Ndubizu, 2019. "Asymmetric sensitivity of executive bonus compensation to earnings and the effect of regulatory changes," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 845-869, October.
    11. Jingoo Kang & Andy Y. Han Kim, 2017. "The Relationship Between CEO Media Appearances and Compensation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 379-394, June.
    12. Kang, Jun-Koo & Luo, Juan & Na, Hyun Seung, 2018. "Are institutional investors with multiple blockholdings effective monitors?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(3), pages 576-602.
    13. Qin, Bo & Yang, Lu, 2022. "CSR contracting and performance-induced CEO turnover," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Page, T. Beau, 2018. "CEO attributes, compensation, and firm value: Evidence from a structural estimation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(2), pages 378-401.
    15. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    16. Woo-Jin Chang & Rachel M. Hayes & Stephen A. Hillegeist, 2016. "Financial Distress Risk and New CEO Compensation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 479-501, February.
    17. Merchant, Kenneth A. & Van der Stede, Wim A. & Zheng, Liu, 2003. "Disciplinary constraints on the advancement of knowledge: the case of organizational incentive systems," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(2-3), pages 251-286.
    18. Rong Huang & Carol Marquardt & Bo Zhang, 2023. "Revenue-expense matching and performance measure choice," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 1690-1720, September.
    19. Desir, Rosemond & Seavey, Scott E. & Thevenot, Maya, 2024. "Information transfer of CEO turnover: Evidence from firm-CEO mismatch," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Kuang, Yu Flora & Qin, Bo, 2009. "Performance-vested stock options and interest alignment," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 46-61.

    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:spr:reaccs:v:28:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11142-021-09648-y. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.