• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.45-54
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• 2019

This study examines whether auditors restrain the analysts' opportunistic behavior as reviewing the companies' interim reports. Analysts' forecasts show a walkdown pattern in which their optimism has decreased as the earnings announcement date has approached. At the beginning of the year, there is a lack of high-quality benchmark information that enables information users to judge the accuracy of analyst's earnings forecasts. Thus, early in the year, analysts are highly inspired to disseminate optimistic forecasts in order to gain manager's favor. In this study, we examine adequate benchmarks prevent analysts from disclosing optimistically biased forecasts. We conjecture that auditors' efforts might mitigate analysts' walkdown pattern. To test this hypothesis, we use data from Korea, where it is mandatory to disclose auditor's review hours. We find that the analyst forecast's walkdown decreases with the ratio as well as the number of audit hours. It implies that an auditor's effort in reviewing interim financial information has a monitoring function that reduces analysts' opportunistic optimism at the beginning of the year. We conjecture that the tendency will be more pronounced when BIG4 auditors review the interim reports. Consistent with the prediction, BIG4 auditors' interim review effort is more effective in suppressing the analysts' walkdown.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.151-165
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• 2017

This study investigates the effect of revenue recognition by percentage of completion method on financial analysts' earnings forecasting information in order industry. Specifically, we examines how the analysts' earnings forecast errors and biases differ according to whether or not to report the unbilled revenue account balance and the level of unbilled revenue account balance. The sample consists of 453 firm-years listed in Korea Stock Exchange during the period from 2010 to 2014 since the information on unbilled revenue accounts can be obtained after the adoption of K-IFRS. The results are as follows. First, we find that the firms with unbilled revenue account balances have lower analysts' earnings forecast accuracy than the firms who do not report unbilled revue account balances. In addition, we find that the accuracy of analysts' earnings forecasts decreases as the amount of unbilled revenue increases. Unbilled revenue account balances occur when the revenue recognition of the contractor is faster than the client. There is a possibility that managerial discretionary judgment and estimation may intervene when the contractor calculates the progress rate. The difference between the actual progress of the construction and the progress recognized by the company lowers the predictive value of financial statements. Our results suggest that the analysts' earnings forecasts may be more difficult for the firms that report unbilled revenue balances as applying the revenue recognition method based on the progress criteria. Second, we find that the firms reporting unbilled revenue account balances tend to have higher the optimistic biases in analysts' earnings forecast than the firms who do not report unbilled revenue account balances. And we find that the analysts' earnings forecast biases are increases as the amount of unbilled revenue increases. This study suggests an effort to reduce the arbitrary adjustment and estimation in the measurement of the progress as well as the introduction of the progress measurement method which can reflect the actual progress. Investors are encouraged to invest and analyze the characteristics of the order-based industry accounting standards. In addition, the results of this study empower the accounting transparency enhancement plan for order industry proposed by the policy authorities.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.53-77
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• 2013

As advertising and promotions are categorized as operating expenses, managers tend to reduce marketing budget to improve their short term profitability. Gauging the value and accountability of marketing spending is therefore considered as a major research priority in marketing. To respond this call, recent studies have documented that financial market reacts positively to a firm's marketing activity or marketing related outcomes such as brand equity and customer satisfaction. However, prior studies focus on the relation of marketing variable and financial market variables. This study suggests a channel about how marketing activity increases firm valuation. Specifically, we propose that a firm's marketing activity increases the level of the firm's product market information and thereby the dispersion in financial analysts' earnings forecasts decreases. With less uncertainty about the firm's future prospect, the firm's managers and shareholders have less information asymmetry, which reduces the firm's cost of capital and thereby increases the valuation of the firm. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to examine how informational benefits can mediate the effect of marketing activity on firm value. To test whether marketing activity contributes to increase in firm value by mitigating information asymmetry, this study employs a longitudinal data which contains 12,824 firm-year observations with 2,337 distinct firms from 1981 to 2006. Firm value is measured by Tobin's Q and one-year-ahead buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR). Following prior literature, dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts is used as a proxy for the information gap between management and shareholders. For model specification, to identify mediating effect, the three-step regression approach is adopted. All models are estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to test the statistical significance of the mediating effect. The analysis shows that marketing intensity has a significant negative relationship with dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts. After including the mediator variable about analyst dispersion, the effect of marketing intensity on firm value drops from 1.199 (p < .01) to 1.130 (p < .01) in Tobin's Q model and the same effect drops from .192 (p < .01) to .188 (p < .01) in BHAR model. The results suggest that analysts' forecast dispersion partially accounts for the positive effect of marketing on firm valuation. Additionally, the same analysis was conducted with an alternative dependent variable (forecast accuracy) and a marketing metric (advertising intensity). The analysis supports the robustness of the main results. In sum, the results provide empirical evidence that marketing activity can increase shareholder value by mitigating problem of information asymmetry in the capital market. The findings have important implications for managers. First, managers should be cognizant of the role of marketing activity in providing information to the financial market as well as to the consumer market. Thus, managers should take into account investors' reaction when they design marketing communication messages for reducing the cost of capital. Second, this study shows a channel on how marketing creates shareholder value and highlights the accountability of marketing. In addition to the direct impact of marketing on firm value, an indirect channel by reducing information asymmetry should be considered. Potentially, marketing managers can justify their spending from the perspective of increasing long-term shareholder value.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.207-215
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• 2018

In this study, targeting KOSPI and KOSDAQ listed companies, the relationship between the abnormal investment of companies and analyst earnings forecasts was empirically analyzed. The analysis period of this study spanned from 2003 to 2015 (with that of dependent variables spanning from 2004 to 2016) based on the variables of interest, and among the companies whose earnings per share forecasts were announced by financial analysts, the final sample of 4,917 companies/year that meets the research condition was selected as the target analysis. The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. First, it turned out that the more total abnormal investment, abnormal R&D and abnormal CAPEX investment, the more accurate were analyst earnings forecasts. Second, the more total abnormal investment, abnormal R&D, abnormal CAPEX investment, the more pessimistic analyst earnings forecasts tended to be. Further analysis has shown that these results came more from over investment groups than under investment groups. The results of this study are expected to make additional contributions to the existing studies in that the abnormal investment is considered as a determinant of analyst earnings forecasts.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.239-276
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• 2009

The paper investigates the possible relationship between earnings prediction by security analysts and special ownership ties that link security companies those analysts belong to and firms under analysis. "Security analysts" are known best for their role as information producers in stock markets where imperfect information is prevalent and transaction costs are high. In such a market, changes in the fundamental value of a company are not spontaneously reflected in the stock price, and the security analysts actively produce and distribute the relevant information crucial for the price mechanism to operate efficiently. Therefore, securing the fairness and accuracy of information they provide is very important for efficiencyof resource allocation as well as protection of investors who are excluded from the special relationship. Evidence of systematic distortion of information by the special tie naturally calls for regulatory intervention, if found. However, one cannot presuppose the existence of distorted information based on the common ownership between the appraiser and the appraisee. Reputation effect is especially cherished by security firms and among analysts as indispensable intangible asset in the industry, and the incentive to maintain good reputation by providing accurate earnings prediction may overweigh the incentive to offer favorable rating or stock recommendation for the firms that are affiliated by common ownership. This study shares the theme of existing literature concerning the effect of conflict of interests on the accuracy of analyst's predictions. This study, however, focuses on the potential conflict of interest situation that may originate from the Korea-specific ownership structure of large conglomerates. Utilizing an extensive database of analysts' reports provided by WiseFn(R) in Korea, we perform empirical analysis of potential relationship between earnings prediction and common ownership. We first analyzed the prediction bias index which tells how optimistic or friendly the analyst's prediction is compared to the realized earnings. It is shown that there exists no statistically significant relationship between the prediction bias and common ownership. This is a rather surprising result since it is observed that the frequency of positive prediction bias is higher with such ownership tie. Next, we analyzed the prediction accuracy index which shows how accurate the analyst's prediction is compared to the realized earnings regardless of its sign. It is also concluded that there is no significant association between the accuracy ofearnings prediction and special relationship. We interpret the results implying that market discipline based on reputation effect is working in Korean stock market in the sense that security companies do not seem to be influenced by an incentive to offer distorted information on affiliated firms. While many of the existing studies confirm the relationship between the ability of the analystand the accuracy of the analyst's prediction, these factors cannot be controlled in the above analysis due to the lack of relevant data. As an indirect way to examine the possibility that such relationship might have distorted the result, we perform an additional but identical analysis based on a sub-sample consisting only of reports by best analysts. The result also confirms the earlier conclusion that the common ownership structure does not affect the accuracy and bias of earnings prediction by the analyst.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.280-286
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• 2019

This study first examines whether the matching principle reduces information asymmetry and verifies the effect on earnings sustainability and information asymmetry. In the presence of information asymmetry between managers and information users, managers can reduce information asymmetry by increasing the quality of earnings. Information asymmetry is measured by the financial analysts' earnings forecast variance. When we look at the results of previous studies, verify whether information asymmetry decreases as the response to the revenue cost increases and whether negative relationship between profit persistence and information asymmetry appears when the response to the revenue cost is high. As a result, firms with high revenue cost response showed a decrease in information asymmetry. The persistence of the earningss from the high earnings-cost response shows that the analysts' earnings forecast dispersion decreases. This means that the better the response to the revenue cost, the better the quality of the earnings and the less the information risk about the uncertainty of the enterprise. This study is different from the previous studies in that it analyzed whether the persistence of the earnings that responded to the high revenue cost reduces the information asymmetry. The results of this study suggest that managers can reduce the information asymmetry by carrying out appropriate revenue - cost responses, which provides important implications for stakeholders who use accounting earnings information.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.99-108
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• 2020

Purpose: This paper investigated the relationship between market competition and firm valuation error. Furthermore, Additional analyses were made according to the quality of financial reports and the listed market. Through the process we confirm to the impact of competition on the capital market. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of competition on valuation errors. The preceding studies did not provide a consistent results of the effects of competing functions on the capital market. One view is that the competition could mitigate the information asymmetry, and the other is that monopolistic lessens the manager's involvement in financial reporting. This study is intended to expand the prior study by analyzing the impact of competition on the capital market and on the valuation of investors. Research design, data, and methodology: The analysis was conducted on 12,031 samples over 11 years from 2008 to 2018 using data from market in Korea. Here the valuation error was measured by the research methodology of Rhodes-Kropf, Robinson and Viswanathan (2005), and competition measured by Herfindahl-Hirschman Index multiplied by (-1), and Concentration Ratio by (-1). Results: We confirm that the positive relationship between competition and the valuation error. In addition, we also found that the positive relation between competition and valuation error was in cases of low discretionary accruals and the KOSDAQ market. This means that the net function of competition does not mitigate valuation errors. Conclusions. This study has the following contributions when compared to prior research. First, the relevance between the level of competition and the valuation of the entity was confirmed. The study by Haw, Hu and Lee (2015) suggested that monopolistic industry of analysts' forecast is more accurate due to lower the variability in earnings. This study magnified it to confirm that monopolistic lessen information uncertainty in valuation. Second, the study on valuation errors was expanded. While the study on the effect of valuation errors on the capital market is generally relatively active, it is different that competition degree has analyzed the effect on valuation errors amid the lack of research on the effect on valuation errors.