1、1858 单词， 3060 汉字 原文 Voluntary Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance The Empirical Evidence on Earnings Forecasts Material Source: Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics 502， 59-74 Author: Author: Naohito Abe， YessicaC.Y.Chung Abstract This study investigates the determinants of companies volunt
2、ary information disclosure. Employing a large and unique dataset on the companies own earnings forecasts and their frequencies， we conducted an empirical analysis of the effects of a firms ownership， board， and capital structures on information disclosure. Our finding is consistent with the hypothes
3、is that the custom of cross-holding among companies strengthens entrenchment by managers. We also find that bank directors force managers to disclose information more frequently. In addition， our results show the borrowing ratio is positively associated with information frequency， suggesting that th
4、e manager is likely to reveal more when his or her firm borrows money from financial institutions. However， additional borrowings beyond the minimum level of effective borrowings decrease the managements disclosing incentive. Key words: Voluntary information Disclosure； Corporate Governance； managem
5、ent earnings forecast； 1. Introduction The corporate governance literature has discussed many mechanisms for resolving the fundamental issue: the agency problem. Perhaps the most pervasive and important factor causing the agency problem between a manager and an investor is the informational asymmetr
6、ies between them. If managers who are better informed about their future prospects have divergent incentives with their investors， they may expropriate investors benefits for their private objectives. One of the principal remedies to agency problems is the law. Regulatory interventions could give ou
7、tside investors certain powers to protect their investment against expropriation by insiders， and meanwhile， require corporate insiders to enforce investor protections， particularly on conveying inside information. In Japan， companies accessing capital markets are required to follow The Commercial C
8、ode and the Securities and Exchange Law. The Commercial Code requires all kinds of companies to prepare individual financial statements， consisting of a balance sheet， an income statement， and a proposal for distribution and appropriation of retained earnings， and to disclose the balance sheet. In a
9、ddition， the Securities and Exchange Law requires publicly held companies to prepare and disclose both consolidated and individual financial statements. Furthermore， to enhance the transparency of corporate accounting， since 1974， Tokyo Securities Exchange TSEhas requested the managers of all exchan
10、ge-listed firms to submit a Brief Letter of Financial Results ， or “KessanTanshin” in JapanesehereafterTanshinwithin 70 days of the end of the fiscal year. Tanshin has been watched with keen interest by outside investors because it contains precious information that is not provided by annual reports
11、. First， traditional financial statements do not always provide the forward-looking information that outside investors might find useful. In contrast to annual reports， Tanshin reports forecast values for the coming years sales， ordinary income， profits， and dividends， not just the current years val
12、ues. Second， as opposed to earnings-related forecasts delivered by market analysts， Tanshin have been made by managers who have superior information to outside investors on their firms expected future performance， which outside financial analysts are not able to know. Moreover， rather than reporting
13、 interval estimates or implicit expects， Tanshin reports point earnings forecasts. Finally， all firms are required to disclose the forecasts at least once a year， but are virtually given a free hand in the decision on the timing and frequency of the release. The Japanese legal system gives managers
14、the discretion to reveal more or withhold corporate information. Some managers reveal information only once to meet the criterion， whereas others reveal information more than nine times in the same year. Figure 1 shows the trends of frequency from 1996 to 2004.We observe that most companies disclose
15、d their earnings forecasts less than twice each year before 2000.In contrast， the number of disclosure began to exhibit heterogeneity in 2001.Although the precise reasons behind the increase are still to be investigated， we can point out several factors that might have contributed to the change. Fir
16、st， all the listed companies will be required to issue financial statements every quarter from 2008.Although the quarterly issuance of Tanshin is not required， it is possible that some firms began to issue financial statements as well as Tanshin to achieve a smooth transition from an annual system t
17、o a quarterly system by adopting the future system in advance. Second， foreign investors have increased their presence in the Japanese stock market. It is possible that company managers felt increasing pressure from foreign investors to disclose information to the entire capital market. Third， more
18、and more listed companies began to rely on direct finance rather than indirect finance for financing their activities. If the role of the main bank system as a substitute for other good corporate governance mechanisms is deteriorating， the importance of information disclosure to the capital market f
19、or firms must increase. The latter two aspects motivate this study. Tanshin data contain several characteristics that provide us with a good opportunity to investigate the relationship between information disclosure and firm characteristics. First， as noted above， all the listed companies have to is
20、sue at least one Tanshin report every year that contains forecast of sales， profit， etc.， for the coming fiscal year. Therefore， our dataset can cover all the listed companies， which prevents self-selection bias. Second， the number of Tanshin issued by a company each year is not fixed. Some companie
21、s submit nine Tanshin a year， whereas some issue just one a year. Therefore， we can utilize this information to identify companies willingness to disclose their situation to the public. Many previous works use the accuracy of analyst forecasts as a proxy of information disclosure. One of the potenti
22、ally serious problems in using the forecast errors is the effect of window dressing. This refers to a company that obtains exactly the same amount of profits as was forecast by analysts， either because the company previously gave the correct information to the public， or because the company manipula
23、ted the account information to ensure the reported profit matched the forecast value. Although frequency information is not completely free from window dressing effects， we expect the effects are not serious. To our best knowledge， this is the first study that uses Tanshin data for investigating the
24、 relationship among managements earnings forecasts and firm characteristics. Using Japanese data provides an additional advantage for analyzing information disclosure. Japanese corporate governance has long been known as a system of bank- centered financing. Although the effectiveness of the so-call
25、ed main bank system is now under serious debate， many listed companies still borrow no negligible amounts of money from banks and accept former bankers on their board of directors. By utilizing detailed information on the bank?company relationship in Japan， we can investigate the effects of the main
26、 bank system on information disclosure. Accordingly， this study examines how a firms ownership structure， borrowing from financial institutions， relationship with banks， and scale influence the managers decision on information release. With the comprehensive data on Tanshin， this research contribute
27、s to corporate governance literature in three ways. First， this research makes a crucial contribution to the field of corporate disclosure by suggesting that managers earnings forecasts are overwhelmingly influenced by large shareholders. Furthermore， crossholding enhances the entrenchment concern r
28、esulting from opaque corporate information. Second， a manager whose company performed badly is inclined to release information more frequently， possibly in order to establish a reputation for transparent accounting reports. Third， financial institutions-oriented financing encourages managers to issu
29、e frequently. The remainder of this research is organized as follows. Section 2 provides our research hypotheses and methodology. Section 3 describes the data and descriptive statistics for all variables adopted in this research. Section 4 presents the empirical results of the determinants of the ma
30、nagers disclosure decision， and conducts several robustness tests. Section 5 concludes this research. Empirical Results In sum， the results in Table 5 support our hypotheses 1 and 3， suggesting that raising funds through financial institutions and attracting foreign investors push managers into cons
31、ciously revealing earnings forecasts. Bank directors play a positive role in addressing the asymmetric information problem. On the other hand， our results do not support hypothesis 2， suggesting that stable large shareholders have an overwhelming power to negatively influence management forecasts. M
32、eanwhile， among the large shareholders， cross-holding worsens the effects on management announcements. Ironically， the higher disclosure frequency does not necessarily indicate that firms have better performance. Instead， it might indicate that managers increase disclosure frequency for the purpose
33、of yielding a positive reputation effect. In sum， empirical evidence leads us to the conclusion that firms with concentrated ownership are relatively reluctant to disclose corporate information. More specifically ， cross-holding heightens the asymmetric information problem. Interaction terms Firms w
34、ith a small scale or with decreasing performance tend to reveal information more frequently. We conjecture that that is because when firms are at the limit of their advantage scale， or performing poorly， they compete with their industrial peers by revealing corporate information frequently in order
35、to attract public attention. In addition， we confirm the implication of previous studies， which is that information disclosure has a positive effect on reducing capital costs， and thereby firms tend to consciously reveal financial information to the public owing to their need for external finance. F
36、urther， our results are consistent with Diamonds 1984 work， which shows that delegated monitoring by a banker may be efficient as a means of avoiding duplication of monitoring by small investors， but contrast with former literature employing analysts forecast accuracy by Koga and Uchino 2006. Conclusions This study has investigated the determinants of managers information disclosure decisions in Japanese listed firms. More specifically， we explore the effects of ownership structure，
