Internal Control Weaknesses and Information Uncertainty

62 Pages Posted: 19 Apr 2006 Last revised: 12 May 2014

See all articles by Messod D. Beneish

Messod D. Beneish

Indiana University - Kelley School of Business - Department of Accounting

Mary Brooke Billings

New York University

Leslie D. Hodder

Indiana University - Kelley School of Business - Department of Accounting

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: September 2007

Abstract

We analyze a sample of 330 firms making unaudited disclosures required by Section 302 and 383 firms making audited disclosures required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We find that Section 302 disclosures are associated with negative announcement abnormal returns of -1.8 percent, and that firms experience an abnormal increase in equity cost of capital of 68 basis points. We conclude that Section 302 disclosures are informative and point to lower credibility of disclosing firms' financial reporting. In contrast, we find that Section 404 disclosures have no noticeable impact on stock prices or firms' cost of capital. Further, we find that auditor quality attenuates the negative response to Section 302 disclosures and that accelerated filers - larger firms required to file under Section 404 - have significantly less negative returns (-1.10 percent) than non-accelerated filers (-4.22 percent). The findings have implications for the debate about whether to implement a scaled securities regulation system for smaller public companies: material weakness disclosures are more informative for smaller firms that likely have higher pre-disclosure information uncertainty.

Keywords: earnings quality, information uncertainty, reporting credibility, Sarbanes-Oxley, audit quality, cost of capital, scaled securities regulation

JEL Classification: G12, G14, G18, G34, G38, M41, M45, M49

Suggested Citation

Beneish, Messod Daniel and Billings, Mary Brooke and Davis Hodder, Leslie D., Internal Control Weaknesses and Information Uncertainty (September 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=896192 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.896192

Messod Daniel Beneish

Indiana University - Kelley School of Business - Department of Accounting ( email )

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Mary Brooke Billings

New York University ( email )

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Leslie D. Davis Hodder (Contact Author)

Indiana University - Kelley School of Business - Department of Accounting ( email )

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Bloomington, IN 47405
United States

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