JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how banks’ financial constraints affect their cash tax avoidance. The authors hypothesize that banks engage in more tax planning to generate additional cash to mitigate their financial constraints. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use a sample of US banks to conduct the panel regression analysis. The authors measure the bank tax avoidance using the cash effective tax rate and measure the bank financial constraints using the Z-score and annual payout ratio. The authors further use the implementation of the Dodd–Frank Act as a quasi-natural experiment to conduct the difference-in-difference analysis. Findings: The authors document that financially constrained banks exhibit lower cash effective tax rates. The authors further show that banks facing greater financial constraints are less likely to pursue tax-saving activities following the Dodd–Frank Act. Moreover, the authors find that non-performing loans increase the influence of financial constraints on tax avoidance, while a financial crisis amplifies the impact of financial constraints on bank cash tax savings. Originality/value: By extending previous research on financial constraints and tax planning, this paper is the first study to recognize financial constraints, along with the Dodd–Frank Act, as determinants of banks’ tax avoidance. This study informs policymakers about the regulation of tax avoidance in the banking industry and sheds light on possible future research on banks’ tax-planning strategies.

We examine whether a firm's voluntary disclosure of pandemic exposure increases stock price crash risk in a turbulent stock market caused by the spread of COVID-19 and other epidemic diseases. Pandemic risk is an unprecedented type of economic shock that alters the firm's stock price. Using an innovative firm-level pandemic exposure dataset based on the textual analysis of earnings conference calls, we show that there is a strong positive correlation between firm-level disclosure of pandemic exposure and one-quarter-ahead stock price crash risk.

Purpose: This study aims to examine declines in audit quality after the COVID-19 travel restrictions/stay-at-home orders were issued in the USA in early 2020. Design/methodology/approach: Taking advantage of variation in the dates of stay-at-home orders issued by different US states, this study identifies engagements that were significantly affected by the lock down orders. Findings: The results suggest that engagements affected by the restrictions produced lower audit quality, as measured through restatements and discretionary accruals, relative to those completed before COVID-19 travel restrictions/stay-at-home orders. Further analysis reveals that this decrease in audit quality was attributable to firms with high inventory relative to assets, high R&D expenses relative to assets and non-Big 4 auditors. Practical implications: This study finds that the restrictions on physical and on-site interaction caused auditors to universally struggle with resource/judgment-intensive accounts such as inventory and R&D expenditures. The results suggest that while Big 4 auditors managed to maintain their status quo level of audit quality following COVID-19 restrictions, non-Big 4 auditors were unable to overcome the challenges of an online work environment and their audit quality declined. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to empirically examine changes in audit quality as a response to a substantial change in auditors’ working environment due to the global health crisis. As work-from-home becomes more prevalent in audit firms, the results suggest that, on average, this move does diminish audit quality.

This paper is the first to investigate the impact of banks’ organizational memory of past history on the conservatism of accounting policy. Specifically, we investigate two types of bad time history: banks’ undercapitalization and the failures of other banks during financial crises. Using a large sample of U.S. banks over the period 1997–2013, we find that both types of bad times are positively related to timelier recognition of earnings decreases versus earnings increases in accounting income. We also find that following bad times, banks increase their allowance for loan losses. The results of path analysis and survey research indicate that bad time memory of banks impacts bank accounting conservatism through CEO tenure and board of directors’ tenure. Collectively, our results suggest that banks’ organizational memory of bad times and macro-level banking crises lead to greater accounting conservatism in banks.

We examine the influence of political uncertainty on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of local firms in China. Political uncertainty refers to government officials' turnover. We find that these firms significantly increase their CSR activities when city government officials are changed or replaced. We also find that political uncertainty increases firms' attention to employee responsibilities, supply chain responsibilities, and environmental responsibilities. In addition, the turnover of government officials increases CSR activities due to the reduction or loss of political connections. The anti-corruption campaign has also strengthened the influence of political uncertainty on CSR.

This paper aims to examine the role of corporate governance (CG) on earnings management (EM) in Indian commercial banks. In addition, the study examines the role of board gender diversity within the CG framework using data from 22 publicly traded commercial banks in India from 2010 to 2019. The study uses Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to develop a comprehensive CG measure. Using a Panel Corrected Standard Error (PCSE) approach, the study finds that CG has a significant negative impact on EM in Indian commercial banks. The findings further revealed a positive association between gender diversity of boards and EM, indicating that the lack of gender diversity on a bank’s board outweighs the benefits of gender-diverse boards. Our study shows that CG mechanisms are more effective when combined together than individual governance mechanisms. The study also provides new insight into the role of board gender diversity as a CG mechanism on EM in banks in the context of a developing country. The study provides practical implications for investors, managers, regulators and policymakers.

Prior studies document that delayed loan loss provisions can worsen financial stability by triggering a capital inadequacy concern. We extend prior literature and investigate how the treatment of loan charge-offs (LCOs) in financial statements is tied to macro-level risk in the U.S. banking industry. We hypothesize and find that nondiscretionary LCOs are positively linked to banks’ future systemic risk, whereas discretionary LCOs are negatively correlated with banks’ future systemic risk. We further show that these effects are driven by two economic mechanisms: banks’ common risk exposure and interconnectedness. This study is the first to document the linkage between banks’ discretionary LCOs and macro-level risk in the banking industry.

Using data hand collected in China between 2001 and 2016, this paper examines how political uncertainty affects city bank lending. Our results show that political uncertainty causes banks to significantly increase loan growth. These results are moderated by the characteristics of government officials, bank characteristics, and the degree of marketization. Our results further show that changes by government officials increase medium-term loan growth, mainly for the real estate and public utilities sector. Finally, we show that city government official changes increase bank lending and, thus, increase credit risk, that is, bank lending has a mediating effect.

We examine whether and how non-traditional banking activities affect the quality of banks’ financial reporting. We find that a bank’s ratio of non-interest income (derived from non-traditional activities) to total operating income is positively and significantly associated with the magnitude of discretionary loan loss provisions, our proxy for financial reporting quality.

In this study, we examine the relationship between financial literacy and bank financial reporting transparency for a sample of banks from the U.S. Following prior literature, we employ discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP) as our primary measure of bank reporting transparency. We argue that the financial literacy of their customers can influence bank managers’ behaviors with respect to both the mechanics of the loan loss provisioning and their opportunistic actions. Financially literate customers represent more stable sources of funding and have more predictable loan loss provisioning that contributes to more persistent earnings. Financial literacy could also enhance customers’ ability to indirectly follow and monitor bank performance and risk-taking. Therefore, bank managers will be less likely to engage in opportunistic earnings manipulation. Following these arguments, we predict that citizens’ financial literacy is positively associated with bank financial reporting transparency. Consistent with our prediction, we find that the magnitude of bank DLLP is negatively related to state-level financial literacy. Moreover, the association between financial literacy and DLLP is higher for banks with more retail deposits and larger consumer loans, the two channels through which financial literacy could influence bank transparency.

Based on a large sample of U.S. public and private banks from 2000 to 2017, this paper investigates the implications of the county-level societal trust for banks’ funding structure. By using social capital as the proxy for societal trust, we find a significantly positive relationship between societal trust and the core deposits. This finding supports the argument that banks have greater access to retail deposits when they are located in regions with higher levels of societal trust. In an additional analysis, we find that the significant effects of societal trust hold only for smaller private banks.

Using a sample of U.S. banks and an index for economic policy uncertainty developed by Baker et al. (2016), we investigate whether economic policy uncertainty is systematically related to bank earnings opacity. When economic policy is relatively uncertain, it is easier for bank managers to distort financial information, as unpredictable economic policy changes make assessing the existence and impact of hidden “adverse news” more difficult for investors and creditors. Economic policy uncertainty also increases the fluctuation in banks’ earnings and cash flows, thus providing additional incentives and opportunities for bank managers to engage in earnings management. Our results show that uncertainty in economic policy is positively related to earnings opacity, proxied by the magnitude of discretionary loan loss provisions and the likelihood of just meeting or beating the prior year's earnings, and negatively related to the level of accounting conservatism (i.e., the timeliness of recognition of bad news relative to good news). Collectively, our results suggest that economic policy uncertainty leads to greater earnings opacity. We also find that the impact of economic policy uncertainty on financial reporting distortion is less pronounced for stronger banks (i.e., banks with high capital ratios).

Using a sample of public and private banks in the U.S. and two measures of social capital, we study how social capital relates to banks’ loan expansion strategies and loan quality. A higher loan growth rate in the banking industry usually implies lower loan standards and a higher percentage of future nonperforming loans. We find that social capital is negatively associated with banks’ loan expansion strategy (proxied by banks’ loan growth). We also document that social capital is negatively associated with growth in risky loans (proxied by real estate loans, construction loans, and commercial and industrial loans). Finally, we find that social capital is negatively associated with bank loan loss provisions, change in loan loss allowance, and change in nonperforming loans. These findings are consistent with the notion that social capital is associated with higher loan quality.

Using a sample of U.S. public and private banks, we examine the implications of banks’ funding strategies for banks’ earnings quality. We find that the ratio of core deposits to total liabilities (CDL), our proxy for bank reliance on retail deposits over wholesale funds, is negatively and significantly associated with the magnitude of earnings management through discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP). This finding is consistent with the arguments that retail deposits are relatively more stable and information-insensitive, reflect a more conservative business model, and attract more intensive monitoring from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) than wholesale funds. We find that the inverse relationship between retail funding and earnings management holds for both income-increasing and income-decreasing DLLP. Besides, reliance on retail funding decreases the likelihood of meeting-or-beating earnings benchmark, and the extent of income smoothing through loan loss provisions (LLP). In an additional analysis, we find that banks with higher CDL are exposed to lower asset deterioration risk, proxied by large non-performing loans and loan charge-offs during the financial crisis period 2007–2009. Collectively, our results indicate that the banks’ funding strategy that relies more on retail deposits as opposed to wholesale funds increases banks’ earnings quality.

We study whether banks use the allowance for loan losses (ALL) for efficiency or for opportunistic reasons. We find that banks that had higher abnormal ALL during the period prior to the 2007–2009 crisis engaged in less risk taking during the pre-crisis period and had a lower probability of failure during the crisis period. In testing earnings management to meet or beat earnings benchmarks, we find that abnormal ALL is unrelated to next period's loss avoidance and just meeting or beating the prior year's earnings. Our results suggest that banks use ALL for efficiency and not for opportunistic purposes.

Using a sample of public and private banks, we study how social capital relates to bank stability. Social capital, which reflects the level of cooperative norms in society, is likely to reduce opportunistic behavior (Jha and Chen 2015; Hasan et al., 2017) and, therefore, act as an informal monitoring mechanism. Consistent with our expectations, we find that banks in high social capital regions experienced fewer failures and less financial trouble during the 2007–2010 financial crisis than banks in low social capital regions. In addition, we find that social capital was negatively associated with abnormal risk-taking and positively associated with accounting transparency and accounting conservatism in the pre-crisis period of 2000–2006, indicating that risk-taking, accounting transparency, and accounting conservatism are possible channels through which social capital affected bank stability during the crisis.

Despite the importance of sell-side financial analysts as information intermediaries in the capital market, little is known about how managerial equity ownership is associated with their information environment. Using Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens' (1998) framework for measuring the precision of financial analysts' information, we observe that managerial ownership is positively associated with the precision of financial analysts' public (common) and private (idiosyncratic) information, largely consistent with the alignment view of managerial equity ownership. These results are robust to controlling for various economic and statistical factors that might affect the inference. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This study examines the relation between investor attention and stock mispricing of accruals in U.S. firms using the Limited Investor Attention Model of Hirshleifer and Teoh (2003). Consistent with the model's hypothesis that investor attention reduces stock mispricing of accruals, I document three key findings. First, I find a significant and negative correlation between stock mispricing of accruals and analyst following. Second, stock mispricing of accruals is negatively correlated with institutional ownership and, in particular, with the ownership of bank trusts and the ownership of pensions and endowments. Third, stock mispricing of accruals is negatively correlated with Big 4 auditor choice. © CAAA/ACPC.

This study examines the determinants of earnings management in an international setting using the limited investor attention model of Hirshleifer and Teoh (). The model predicts that investor attention reduces earnings management. I use analyst following, institutional ownership, and Big N auditor choice to proxy for investor attention. I have four key findings. First, I document that financial analysts curb earnings management in U.S. firms but not in non-U.S. firms. © CAAA/ACPC.

We examine the unintended consequences of the 2005 increase from $500 million to $1 billion in the asset threshold for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA) internal control reporting requirements. We focus on a test sample of banks that increased their total assets from between $100 million and $500 million prior to the change in regulation to between $500 million and $1 billion within two years following the change. These "affected" banks are no longer subject to the internal control requirements but would have been had the regulation not been changed. We hypothesize that these affected banks are likely to make riskier loans, which will increase the likelihood of failure during the crisis period. We find evidence consistent with this hypothesis. Affected banks have higher likelihood of failure during the crisis period than banks from two different control samples. We also find that auditor reputation (i.e., whether the bank is audited by a Big 4 auditor or an industry specialist auditor) has a moderating effect on the likelihood of failure for these affected banks. © 2013.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA) of 1991 was designed, among other things, to introduce risk-based deposit insurance, increase capital requirements, and improve banks' internal controls. Of particular interest in this study are the requirements for annual audit and reporting of management's and auditor's assessment of the effectiveness of internal control for banks with $500 million or more in total assets (raised to $1 billion in 2005). We study the impact of these requirements on banks' risk-taking behavior prior to the recent financial crisis and the consequent implications for bank failure and financial trouble during the crisis period. Using a sample of 1138 banks, we provide evidence that banks required to comply with the FDICIA internal control requirements have lower risk taking in the pre-crisis period. Specifically, the volatility of net interest margin, the volatility of earnings, and Z score show less risk-taking behavior. Furthermore, these banks are less likely to experience failure and financial trouble during the crisis period. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

We examine the ability of selected accounting and audit quality variables measured in a period prior to the financial crisis (i.e., the four quarters of 2006), to predict banks that subsequently failed during the financial crisis. We employ two sets of samples from the US: a troubled banks sample that includes banks that failed in or after 2007 as well as banks classified as being troubled based on profitability, loan quality, and balance sheet position in 2007, and a full sample that includes all banks with available required data. Using the troubled banks sample, we identify six reliable predictors of bank failure: auditor type, auditor industry specialization, Tier 1 capital ratio, proportion of securitized loans, growth in loans, and loan mix. For the larger full sample of banks, we identify the following ten predictors of bank failure: auditor type, Tier 1 capital ratio, proportion of securitized loans, nonperforming loans, loan loss provisions, growth in commercial loans, growth in real estate loans, growth in overall loans, loan mix, and whether the bank is a public bank.