Is CEO Certification of Earnings Numbers Value-Relevant?

Bhattacharya , Utpal; Groznik, Peter; Haslem, Bruce

doi:10.2139/ssrn.332621

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Is CEO Certification of Earnings Numbers Value-Relevant?

FSU College of Law, Law, Business & Economics Paper No. #

32 Pages Posted: 27 Oct 2002 Last revised: 20 Jun 2008

See all articles by Utpal Bhattacharya

Peter Groznik

University of Ljubljana - Faculty of Economics

Bruce Haslem

Southern Utah University - Department of Economics and Finance

There are 2 versions of this paper

Abstract

On June 27, 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States ordered the CEOs and CFOs of 688 large firms to certify the earnings numbers of their companies by 5:30PM EST, Aug 14, 2002. This paper uses this natural experiment to find that certification was not only a non-event for the certifiers around their certification date, but it was also a non-event for the non-certifiers around Aug 15, 2002. Further tests make us conclude that CEO's certification of earnings numbers is not value-relevant.

Keywords: earnings transparency, CEO certification, credible signal, accounting regulation, Sarbanes-Oxley Act

JEL Classification: G12, G34, G38, D84, M41

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Bhattacharya, Utpal and Groznik, Peter and Haslem, Bruce, Is CEO Certification of Earnings Numbers Value-Relevant?. FSU College of Law, Law, Business & Economics Paper No. #, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=332621 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.332621