Seminar (Dept. of Accounting)

Theme：Why Accounting Regulation? An Interplay between Managerial Manipulation and Investor Experience

Speaker：Kai Gu (University of Houston, Doctoral Candidate)

Time：2021-12-22 08:30

Address：Tencent Meeting

Language：Chinese/English

Venue：Tencent Meeting https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/3q5J4vlFUz7m 

Meeting ID：122-854-847

Password：1222

ABSTRACT:

In this paper, I ask the question whether accounting regulation is beneficial or detrimental from the angle of investors’ information processing behaviors. It is well established that managers engage in various kinds of reporting manipulations, and the rewards from manipulations are determined by how the market uses financial information. Based on the view that accounting regulates the unmanipulated information pattern managers can supply to the market, I analyze managers’ incentives to manipulate financial reporting in an unregulated economy versus in a regulated economy, and examine the efficiency implications of accounting regulation, conditional on different types of investor experience. I find that 1) while accounting regulation generally increases investment efficiency, it can reduce investment efficiency and lead to more managerial manipulations; 2) investor sophistication may, but not always, strengthen the effects of accounting regulation; and 3) accounting regulation may induce the market to act more conservatively; and 4) optimal accounting regulation needs to condition on whether good and bad firms are sufficiently different. A number of empirical implications are also discussed.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Kai Gu is an accounting PhD candidate at the University of Houston. Kai conducts research spanning from financial accounting to auditing using various methodologies. His current research focuses on individuals' decision making processes, heterogeneities among individuals, standard setting, and features the use of both economic and sociological theories to explain accounting phenomenon.