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Abstract:
We review extensive evidence about how psychological biases affect investor behavior and prices. Systematic mispricing probably causes substantial resource misallocation. We argue that limited attention and overconfidence cause investor credulity about the strategic incentives of informed market participants. However, individuals as political participants remain subject to the biases and self-interest they exhibit in private settings. Indeed, correcting contemporaneous market pricing errors is probably not government's relative advantage. Government and private planners should establish rules and procedures ex ante to improve choices and efficiency, including disclosure, reporting, advertising, and default-option-setting regulations. Especially, government should avoid actions that exacerbate investor biases.

Abstract:
We review extensive evidence about how psychological biases affect investor behavior and prices. Systematic mispricing probably causes substantial resource misallocation. We argue that limited attention and overconfidence cause investor credulity about the strategic incentives of informed market participants. However, individuals as political participants remain subject to the biases and self-interest they exhibit in private settings. Indeed, correcting contemporaneous market pricing errors is probably not government's relative advantage. Government and private planners should establish rules ex ante to improve choices and efficiency, including disclosure, reporting, advertising, and default-option- setting policies. Especially, government should avoid actions that exacerbate investor biases.

Abstract:
We review theory and evidence relating to herd behavior, payoff and reputational interactions, social learning, and informational cascades in capital markets. We offer a simple taxonomy of effects, and evaluate how alternative theories may help explain evidence on the behavior of investors, firms, and analysts. We consider both incentives for parties to engage in herding or cascading, and the incentives for parties to protect against or take advantage of herding or cascading by others.

Abstract:
This paper models firms' choices between alternative means of presenting information, and the effects of different presentations on market prices when investors have limited attention and processing power. In a market equilibrium with partially attentive investors, we examine the effects of alternative: levels of discretion in pro forma earnings disclosure, methods of accounting for employee option compensation, and degrees of aggregation in reporting. We derive empirical implications relating pro forma adjustments, option compensation, the growth, persistence, and informativeness of earnings, short-run managerial incentives, and other firm characteristics to stock price reactions, misvaluation, long-run abnormal returns, and corporate decisions.

limited attention, behavioral accounting, investor psychology, capital markets, accounting regulation, disclosure, market efficiency

Abstract:
This paper models firms' choices between alternative means of presenting information, and the effects of different presentations on market prices when investors have limited attention and processing power. In a market equilibrium with partially attentive investors, we examine the effects of alternative: levels of discretion in pro forma earnings disclosure, methods of accounting for employee option compensation, and degrees of aggregation in reporting. We derive empirical implications relating pro forma adjustments, option compensation, the growth, persistence, and informativeness of earnings, short-run managerial incentives, and other firm characteristics to stock price reactions, misvaluation, long-run abnormal returns, and corporate decisions.

limited attention, behavioral accounting, investor psychology, capital markets, accounting regulation, disclosure, market efficiency

Abstract:
This paper examines the dynamic behavior of analysts' earnings forecasts over the twelve months preceding annual earnings announcements. We investigate the claim that analysts make optimistic forecasts at the start of the year and then 'walk down' their estimates to a level the firm is likely to beat by the end of the year. The sample consists of I/B/E/S individual-analyst forecasts for the period 1983-1997. In the post-1992 period, we find strong evidence of a switch from upward-biased to downward-biased forecasts of annual earnings as the announcement date approaches. Forecast pessimism is strongest for high market-to-book firms, for large firms, and in periods when real GDP is growing. We also find that analysts forecasts are more accurate for firms involved in new equity issuance. Finally, we find that pessimistic forecasts are more frequent in years when firms report positive special items, high cash flows from operations and high working capital accruals.

Abstract:
If investors have limited attention, then accounting outcomes that saliently highlight positive aspects of a firm's performance will promote high market valuations. When cumulative accounting value added (net operating income) over time outstrips cumulative cash value added (free cash flow), it becomes hard for the firm to sustain further earnings growth. When the balance sheet is 'bloated' in this fashion, we argue that investors with limited attention will overvalue the firm, because naïve earnings-based valuation disregards the firm's relative lack of success in generating cash flows in excess of investment needs. The level of net operating assets, the difference between cumulative earnings and cumulative free cash flow over time, is therefore a measure of the extent to which operating/reporting outcomes provoke excessive investor optimism. Therefore, if investor attention is limited, net operating assets will negatively predict subsequent stock returns. In our 1964-2002 sample, net operating assets scaled by beginning total assets is a strong negative predictor of long-run stock returns. Predictability is robust with respect to an extensive set of controls and testing methods.

limited attention, market efficiency, investor misvaluation

Abstract:
This study tests whether naïve trading by individual investors, or some class of individual investors, causes post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD). Inconsistent with the individual trading hypothesis, individual investor trading fails to subsume any of the power of extreme earnings surprises to predict future abnormal returns. Moreover, individuals are significant net buyers after both negative and positive extreme earnings surprises, consistent with an attention effect, but not with their trades causing PEAD. Finally, we find no indication that trading by individuals explains the concentration of drift at subsequent earnings announcement dates.

earnings anomalies, post-earnings announcement drift, market efficiency, trading activity, individual investors, investor sophistication

Abstract:
Security regulators and the business press have alleged that firms play an 'earnings-guidance game' where analysts make optimistic forecasts at the start of the year and then 'walk down' their estimates to a level the firm can beat by the end of the year. In a comprehensive sample of I/B/E/S individual analysts' forecasts of annual earnings from 1983-1998, we find strong support for the claim in the post-1992 period. We examine whether the 'walk down' to beatable targets is associated with managers' incentives to sell stock after earnings announcements on the firm's behalf (via new equity issuance) or from their personal accounts (insider trades). Consistent with these hypotheses, we find that the 'walk down' to beatable targets is most pronounced in firms that are either net issuers of equity or in firms where managers are net sellers of stock after an earnings announcement. These findings provide new insights on how capital market incentives affect communications between managers and analysts.

Analyst forecasts; Benchmark beating; Pessimism; Optimism; Walkdown; Equity issuance; Insider trading; Earnings guidance; Disclosure; Earnings surprise; Forecast error

Abstract:
This paper uses pre-offer market valuations to evaluate the misvaluation and Q theories of takeovers. Bidder and target valuations (price-to-book, or price-to-residual-income-model-value) are related to means of payment, mode of acquisition, premia, target hostility, offer success, and bidder and target announcement-period returns. The evidence is broadly consistent with both hypotheses. The evidence for the Q hypothesis is stronger in the pre-1990 period than in the 1990-2000 period, whereas the evidence for the misvaluation hypothesis is stronger in the 1990-2000 period than in the pre-1990 period.

takeovers, misvaluation, market efficiency, behavioral finance

Abstract:
This paper tests the hypothesis that irrational market misvaluation affects firms' takeover behavior. We employ two contemporaneous proxies for market misvaluation, pre-takeover book/price ratios and pre-takeover ratios of residual income model value to price. Misvaluation of bidders and targets influences the means of payment chosen, the mode of acquisition, the premia paid, target hostility to the offer, the likelihood of offer success, and bidder and target announcement period stock returns. The evidence is broadly supportive of the misvaluation hypothesis.

takeovers, misvaluation, market efficiency, behavioral finance

Abstract:
We document considerable return comovement associated with accruals after controlling for other common factors. An accrual-based factor-mimicking portfolio has a Sharpe ratio of 0.15, higher than that of the market factor or the HML factor of Fama and French (1993). In time series regressions, a model that includes the Fama-French factors and the additional accrual factor captures the accrual anomaly in average returns. However, further time series and cross-sectional tests indicate that it is the accrual characteristic rather than the accrual factor loading that predicts returns. These findings favor a behavioral explanation for the accrual anomaly.

Capital markets, accruals, market efficiency, behavioral accounting, behavioral finance, limited attention

Abstract:
This paper addresses the debate about R-square as an indicator of information quality: Does low R-square indicate early resolution of uncertainty through the arrival of firm-specific information, or does it indicate a high level of uncertainty that remains unresolved? Tests based on the post-earnings-announcement drift, V/P, accruals, and net operating assets anomalies all reject the view that low R-square indicates a high quality information environment (early resolution of uncertainty). Low R-square firms have lower future earnings response coefficient, indicating that their current stock price incorporates a smaller amount of future earnings news, and thus more uncertainty about future earnings news remains unresolved. Furthermore, low R-square firms have worse information environment as measured by earnings quality, earnings persistence, and earnings predictability, and have higher probability of distress.

R-square, idiosyncratic volatility, firm-specific information

Abstract:
We model limited attention as incomplete usage of publicly available information. Informed players decide whether or not to disclose to observers who sometimes neglect either disclosed signals or the implications of non-disclosure. These observers may choose ex ante how to allocate their limited attention. In equilibrium observers are unrealistically optimistic, disclosure is incomplete, neglect of disclosed signals increases disclosure, and neglect of a failure to disclose reduces disclosure. Regulation requiring greater disclosure can reduce observers' belief accuracies and welfare. Disclosure in one arena affects perceptions in fundamentally unrelated arenas, owing to cue competition, salience, and analytical interference. Disclosure in one arena can crowd out disclosure in another.

Abstract:
We model limited attention as incomplete usage of publicly available information. Informed players decide whether or not to disclose to observers who sometimes neglect either disclosed signals or the implications of non-disclosure. These observers may choose ex ante how to allocate their limited attention. In equilibrium observers are unrealistically optimistic, disclosure is incomplete, neglect of disclosed signals increases disclosure, and neglect of a failure to disclose reduces disclosure. Regulation requiring greater disclosure can reduce observers' belief accuracies and welfare. Disclosure in one arena affects perceptions in fundamentally unrelated arenas, owing to cue competition, salience, and analytical interference. Disclosure in one arena can crowd out disclosure in another.

Abstract:
We model limited attention as incomplete usage of publicly available information. Informed players decide whether or not to disclose to observers who sometimes neglect either disclosed signals or the implications of non-disclosure. In equilibrium observers are unrealistically optimistic, disclosure is incomplete, neglect of disclosed signals increases disclosure, and neglect of a failure to disclose reduces disclosure. Regulation requiring greater disclosure can reduce observers' belief accuracies and welfare. Disclosure in one arena affects perceptions in fundamentally unrelated arenas, owing to cue competition, salience, and analytical interference. Disclosure in one arena can crowd out disclosure in another. A player may disclose in one arena to distract from bad news in the other (a "wag the dog" effect).

Abstract:
Past research has shown that the level of operating accruals is a negative cross-sectional predictor of stock returns. This paper examines whether the accrual anomaly extends to the aggregate stock market. In contrast with cross-sectional findings, there is no indication that aggregate operating accruals is a negative time series predictor of stock market returns; the relation is strongly positive for the market portfolio and also for several sector and industry portfolios. In addition, innovations in accruals are negatively contemporaneously associated with market returns, suggesting that changes in accruals contain information about changes in discount rates, or that firms manage earnings in response to market-wide undervaluation.

Abstract:
Prevailing models of capital markets capture a limited form of social influence and information transmission, in which the beliefs and behavior of an investor affect others only through market price, information transmission and processing is simple (without thoughts and feelings), and there is no localization in the influence of an investor on others. In reality, individuals often process verbal arguments obtained in conversation or from media presentations, and observe the behavior of others. We review here evidence concerning how these activities cause beliefs and behaviors to spread, affect financial decisions, and affect market prices; and theoretical models of social influence and its effects on capital markets. Social influence is central to how information and investor sentiment are transmitted, so thought and behavior contagion should be incorporated into the theory of capital markets.

capital markets, thought contagion, behavioral contagion, herd behavior, information cascades, social learning, investor psychology, accounting regulation, disclosure, behavioral finance, market efficiency, popular models, memes

Abstract:
We provide a model in which a single psychological constraint, limited investor attention, explains both under- and over-reaction to different earnings components. Investor neglect of information in current-period earnings about future earnings induces post-earnings announcement drift (as documented by \citeN{bernard/thomas:89}), the strength of which is increasing with the persistence of earnings.

Neglect of earnings components causes accruals and cash flows to predict abnormal returns (\citeN{sloan:96}). (Accruals are the adjustments made to cash flows to produce accounting earnings.) We derive new untested empirical implications relating the strength of the drift, accruals, and cash flow anomalies to the quality of earnings, to the number of distracting events, and to the volatilities of and correlation between accruals and cash flows.

We model limited attention as causing some investors to condition only on subsets of publicly available information signals in valuing a stock. Owing to risk aversion, equilibrium stock prices reflect a weighted average of the beliefs of investors who attend to different signals. In equilibrium, prices underreact to earnings surprises because some investors form valuations that do not reflect the newly-arriving earnings news. Investors who do not distinguish between earnings components overvalue high accruals firms and undervalue high cash flow firms, because the level of accruals is a less favorable forecaster of future profitability than cash flow. Since misvaluation is eventually corrected, high accruals predict low subsequent abnormal returns, and high cash flows predict high subsequent abnormal returns. Thus, the analysis reconciles underreaction to earnings with overreaction to accruals.

The model also offers a further set of empirical implications: (1) Greater earnings persistence implies stronger post-earnings announcement drift; (2) The greater the number of distracting events, the stronger is post-earnings announcement drift; (3) The more variable are accruals relative to cash flows, the stronger is the predictive power of cash flow relative to accruals in predicting future returns; (4) The ratio of the slope coefficient in the regression of returns on cash flow to the slope coefficient on accruals is greater in absolute value than the ratio of the accruals variance to the cash flow variance; and (5) The accruals/return relation becomes weaker when the correlation between cash flow and accruals increases.

limited attention, behavioral finance, investor psychology, capital markets, accruals, market efficiency

Abstract:
Psychological evidence indicates that it is hard to process multiple stimuli and perform multiple tasks at the same time. This paper tests the investor distraction hypothesis, which holds that the arrival of extraneous news causes trading and market prices to react sluggishly to relevant news about a firm. Our test focuses on the competition for investor attention between a firm's earnings announcements and the earnings announcements of other firms. We find that the immediate stock price and volume reaction to a firm's earnings surprise is weaker, and post-earnings announcement drift is stronger, when a greater number of earnings announcements by other firms are made on the same day. Distracting news has a stronger effect on firms that receive positive than negative earnings surprises. Industry-unrelated news has a stronger distracting effect than related news. A trading strategy that exploits post-earnings announcement drift is unprofitable for announcements made on days with little competing news.

limited attention, behavioral finance, investor psychology, capital markets, post-earnings announcement drift, market efficiency

Abstract:
We find that analysts' forecast errors are predicted by past accounting accruals (adjustments to cash flows to obtain reported earnings) among both equity issuers and non-issuers. Analysts are more optimistic for the subsequent four years for issuers reporting higher issue-year accruals. The predictive power is greater for discretionary accruals than non-discretionary accruals, and is independent of the presence of an underwriting affiliation. Predicted forecast errors from accruals partially explain the long-term underperformance of new issuers. The predictability of forecast errors also for non-issuers with high accruals suggests that analysts' credulity about accruals management more generally contributes to market inefficiency.

Abstract:
We find that analysts' forecast errors are predicted by past accounting accruals (adjustments to cash flows to obtain reported earnings) among both equity issuers and non-issuers. Analysts are more optimistic for the subsequent four years for issuers reporting higher issue-year accruals. The predictive power is greater for discretionary accruals than non-discretionary accruals, and is independent of the presence of an underwriting affiliation. Predicted forecast errors from accruals partially explain the long-term underperformance of new issuers. The predictability of forecast errors also for non-issuers with high accruals suggests that analysts' credulity about accruals management more generally contributes to market inefficiency.

Abstract:
This paper provides evidence that analysts are credulous about the discretionary accruals at the time of an initial public offering and a seasoned equity issue. Discretionary accruals in the offering year predict subsequent analysts' forecast errors of annual earnings for as long as four fiscal years after the new issue. The discretionary accruals also predict the analysts' five-year growth forecast errors made in the offering year. The long horizon of the observed credulity matches the three to five year horizon of the new issues puzzle of post-issue stock return underperformance documented in recent studies. Analysts who are unaffiliated with the underwriters of the new issue are equally credulous as affiliated analysts. The evidence provides support for the conjecture that inadequate discounting of financial reports by analysts may have fueled initial investor overoptimism in the new issue.

Abstract:
Governments and vocal institutional shareholders have been exerting pressure on companies they deem to have objectionable operations (such as tobacco or chemical producers). This paper studies the effect of the most important legislative and shareholder boycott to date, the boycott of the South Africa's apartheid regime. We find that the announcement of legislative/shareholder pressure of voluntary divestment from South Africa had little discernible effect either on the valuation of banks and corporations with South African operations or on the South African financial markets. There is weak evidence that institutional shareholdings increased when corporations divested. In sum, despite the public significance of the boycott and the multitude of divesting companies, financial markets seem to have perceived the boycott to be merely a "sideshow."

Abstract:
In our model, informed players decide whether or not to disclose, and observers allocate attention among disclosed signals, and toward reasoning through the implications of a failure to disclose. In equilibrium disclosure is incomplete, and observers are unrealistically optimistic. Nevertheless, regulation requiring greater disclosure can reduce observers' belief accuracies and welfare. A stronger tendency to neglect disclosed signals increases disclosure, whereas a stronger tendency to neglect failures to disclose reduces disclosure. Observer beliefs are influenced by the salience of disclosed signals, and disclosure in one arena can crowd out disclosure in other fundamentally unrelated arenas.

Disclosure policy, disclosure regulation, limited attention, behavioral economics, behavioral accounting, behavioral finance, market efficiency, psychology and economics

Abstract:
We find a positive association between short-selling and accruals during 1988-2003. Short arbitrage occurs primarily among firms in the top accrual decile, and firms with sufficiently high supply of loanable shares (proxied by institutional holdings). Consistent with limits to short arbitrage, there is an asymmetry between the up- and down- sides of the accrual anomaly. Asymmetry is only present on NASDAQ, and is significantly stronger among firms with low institutional holdings, low liquidity (turnover and size), and high residual volatility. Thus, there is short arbitrage of the accrual anomaly, but short sale constraints limit its effectiveness.

Accruals, anomalies, arbitrage, short sales, market efficiency

Abstract:
We offer here the psychological attraction approach to accounting and disclosure rules, regulation, and policy as a program for positive accounting research. We suggest that psychological forces have shaped and continue to shape rules and policies in two different ways. (1) Good Rules for Bad Users: rules and policies that provide information in a form that is useful for users who are subject to bias and cognitive processing constraints. (2) Bad Rules: superfluous or even pernicious rules and policies that result from psychological bias on the part of the 'designers' (managers, users, auditors, regulators, politicians, or voters). We offer some initial ideas about psychological sources of the use of historical costs, conservatism, aggregation, and a focus on downside outcomes in risk disclosures. We also suggest that psychological forces cause informal shifts in reporting and disclosure regulation and policy, which can exacerbate boom/bust patterns in financial markets.

Abstract:
We investigate empirically whether mispricing of a firm's stock affects CEO equity-based compensation, controlling for industry and year effects, economic determinants, board characteristics, and institutional ownership. We hypothesize that an overvalued firm may award higher grants to meet the manager's reservation utility from another job, to maintain performance incentives, to acquiesce to greater rent extraction, or to reduce the likelihood of paying for luck. Among firms that award stock options, we find that CEOs of overvalued firms receive higher stock option compensation, lower cash compensation and higher overall total compensation. Furthermore, we find that when a firm awards higher option grants in response to overvaluation or because of a weak board, it subsequently underperforms more. However, the firm subsequently overperforms when it awards more option grants because it has high growth prospects or a high fraction of institutional shareholders.

corporate governance, misvaluation, compensation

Abstract:
This paper analyzes the effect of information generation and disclosure upon free riding and on the likelihood that cooperative efforts collapse in a public goods game. The model shows that the prospect of greater disclosure can make all individuals worse off ex ante by reducing expected contributions to the public good. Conditions under which disclosure becomes either more or less desirable are derived as a function of the number of individual contributors. Regulation or competitive problems that increase direct costs of disclosure may on average increase the provision of public goods and improve welfare. The desirability of disclosure in the contexts of collective political action, debt renegotiation, and production in teams are discussed.

Abstract:
This paper analyzes the effect of information generation and disclosure upon free riding and on the likelihood that cooperative efforts collapse in a public goods game. The model shows that the prospect of greater disclosure can make all individuals worse off ex ante by reducing expected contributions to the public good. Conditions under which disclosure becomes either more or less desirable are derived as a function of the number of individual contributors. Regulation or competitive problems that increase direct costs of disclosure may on average increase the provision of public goods and improve welfare. The desirability of disclosure in the contexts of collective political action, debt renegotiation, and production in teams are discussed.

Abstract:
We review theory and evidence relating to herd behaviour, payoff and reputational interactions, social learning, and informational cascades in capital markets. We offer a simple taxonomy of effects, and evaluate how alternative theories may help explain evidence on the behaviour of investors, firms, and analysts. We consider both incentives for parties to engage in herding or cascading, and the incentives for parties to protect against or take advantage of herding or cascading by others.

Herd Behaviour, Informational Cascades, Social Learning, Analyst Herding, Capital Markets, Financial Reporting, Behavioral Finance, Investor Psychology, Market Efficiency

Abstract:
We review theory and evidence relating to herd behavior, payoff and reputational interactions, social learning and informational cascades in capital markets. We offer a simple taxonomy of effects and evaluate how alternative theories may help explain evidence on the behavior of investors, firms and analysts. We consider both incentives for parties to engage in herding or cascading and the incentives for parties to protect against or take advantage of herding or cascading by others.

Abstract:
Abstract not available.

Abstract:
We argue that self-deception underlies various aspects of the behavior of investors and of prices in capital markets. We examine the implications of self-deception for investor overconfidence, and how firms and financial institutions can exploit the overconfidence of investors in a predatory fashion. These ideas link self-deception to deception by others. We also examine how investor self-deception and overconfidence can affect financial reporting and disclosure policy.

Abstract:
This study tests whether na¿ve trading by individual investors, or some class of individual investors, causes post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD). Inconsistent with the individual trading hypothesis, individual investor trading fails to subsume any of the power of extreme earnings surprises to predict future abnormal returns. Moreover, individuals are significant net buyers after both negative and positive extreme earnings surprises, consistent with an attention effect, but not with their trades causing PEAD. Finally, we find no indication that trading by individuals explains the concentration of drift at subsequent earnings announcement dates.

earnings anomalies, post-earnings announcement drift, market efficiency, trading activity, individual investors, investor sophistication

Abstract:
It has been alleged that firms and analysts engage in an earnings guidance game where analysts first issue optimistic earnings forecasts and then 'walk down' their estimates to a level firms can beat at the official earnings announcement. We examine whether the walk-down to beatable targets is associated with managerial incentives to sell stock after earnings announcements on the firm's behalf (via new equity issuance) or from their personal accounts (through option exercises and stock sales). Consistent with these hypotheses, we find that the walk-down to beatable targets is most pronounced when firms or insiders are net sellers of stock after an earnings announcement. These findings provide new insights on the impact of capital market incentives on communications between managers and analysts.

Earnings Announcement, Expectations Management, Insider Trading, Stock Options

Abstract:
This paper examines accounting earnings and the associated accrual and cash flow components in the years surrounding an initial public offering (IPO) to study the incentives and opportunities for firms to manage earnings when going public. We identify firm and offering characteristics that may be related to the amount of earnings management in IPO firms. We find that age and ownership retention by original entrepreneurs are significantly negatively related to industry-adjusted discretionary accounting accruals. In addition, we find that net income and cash flow from operations increase in the fiscal year prior to the IPO, and decline significantly in the year of the IPO. Net income continues to decline subsequently but not cash flows. Discretionary working capital and total accruals in the year of the IPO are negatively related to future cash flows and the change in net income between the pre-and post-IPO period. Taken together, the evidence is consistent with a scenario where firms either time an IPO immediately after a year of unusually high cash flow or boost cash flows right before the IPO, and then use accounting accruals to sustain reported net income in the year of the IPO. Thus, the evidence is consistent with the IPO firm attempting to manage investor perceptions with discretionary accruals.

Abstract:
We examine empirically whether earnings management as measured by discretionary accounting accruals explain post-issue stock return underperformance for IPO firms. We find that high discretionary accounting accruals are related to negative abnormal stock returns with high statistical significance. For example, a trading strategy of a short position in IPO firms with high discretionary accruals and a long position in IPOs with low discretionary accruals result in a mean (median) excess return of 102% (83.5%) in the 36-month period beginning after the first fiscal year end of the IPO. The evidence is consistent with Ritter's [1991] conjecture that investors are systematically overoptimistic about the growth prospects of IPO firms. The high discretionary accounting accruals seem to be associated with initial overoptimism of investors with subsequent revelations about the appropriateness of the accruals causing a subsequent downward revision in stock prices.

Abstract:
We find evidence that initial public offering (IPO) firms, on average, have high positive issue-year earnings and abnormal accruals, followed by poor long-run earnings and negative abnormal accruals. The IPO-year abnormal, and not expected, accruals explain the cross-sectional variation in post-issue earnings and stock returns. The results are robust with respect to alternative abnormal accruals and earnings performance measures. IPO firms adopt more income-increasing depreciation policies when they deviate from similar prior performance same industry non-issuers, and they provide significantly less for uncollectible accounts receivable than their matched non-issuers. The results taken together suggest opportunistic earnings management partially explains the new issues anomaly.

Abstract:
This article studies the most important legislative and shareholder boycott to date, the boycott of South Africa's apartheid regime. We find that corporate involvement with South Africa was so small that the announcement of legislative/shareholder pressure or voluntary corporate divestment from South Africa had little discernible effect either on the valuation of banks and corporations with South African operations or on the South African financial markets. There is weak evidence that institutional shareholdings increased when corporations divested. In sum, despite the publicity of the boycott and the multitude of divesting companies, political pressure had little visible effect on the financial markets.

Abstract:
Loughran and Ritter (1995) document that firms issuing seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) severely underperform the stock market for three to five years after the offering. Our paper examines the hypothesis that SEO investors are too optimistic because they naively extrapolate earnings trends without fully adjusting for observable discretionary managerial reporting choices. We find that aggressive firms, which report high pre-SEO earnings at the expense of post-SEO earnings by taking high discretionary pre-issue accruals, subsequently perform worse (abnormal stock returns and industry-adjusted net income). Aggressive quartile firms earned a highly significant-50% four-year cumulative abnormal return; conservative quartile firms earn an insignificant-7% four-year cumulative abnormal return. In contrast with discretionary accruals, pre-issue non-discretionary accruals did not predict post-SEO returns.

Abstract:
Loughran and Ritter (1995) document that firms issuing seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) severely underperform the stock market for three to five years after the offering. Our paper examines the hypothesis that SEO investors are too optimistic because they naively extrapolate earnings trends without fully adjusting for observable discretionary managerial reporting choices. We find that aggressive firms, which report high pre-SEO earnings at the expense of post-SEO earnings by taking high discretionary pre-issue accruals, subsequently performed worse (abnormal stock returns and industry-adjusted net income). Aggressive quartile firms earned a highly significant-48% four-year cumulative abnormal return; conservative quartile firms earned an insignificant-7% four-year cumulative abnormal return. In contrast with discretionary accruals, pre-issue non-discretionary accruals did not predict post SEO returns. This paper is also available at the following web address: ftp://next.agsm.ucla.edu/academic.finance/mngseo.ps ftp://next.agsm.ucla.edu/academic.finance/mngseo.hp If you have any questions concerning downloading, please contact Professor Teoh.