فصلنامه دانش حسابداری
پیاپی 17 (تابستان 1393)

This study investigates the relationship between earnings management and information asymmetry under the condition of environmental uncertainty. In this study, to quantify earnings management, the models based on discretionary accruals (from Dechow et al, 2002 and Kothari et al, 2005) were used. Standard deviation of the stock price and bid ask spread models were also used for information asymmetry. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested. The data of 101 firms (505 firm/years) from the Tehran Stock Exchange in the period of 1387 to 1391 was collected and tested, using multi-variable regression panel model. The empirical findings indicate that all the three hypotheses are confirmed. That is, earnings management and environmental uncertainty variables have significant relationships with information asymmetry, and the both lead to increasing information asymmetry. In addition, findings show that environmental uncertainty results in weakening the relationship between earnings management and information asymmetry.

This study investigates whether and how firm investment efficiency is influenced by the accrual-based earnings management. The major purpose of this paper is investigating and analyzing the relationship between proxy of accrual-based earnings management and firm’s excess investments. Prior researches suggest that earnings management leads to increase in excess investments of firms (over-investments or under-investments). In this study, the data from 63 listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange in the period of 1378-1388 (1999-2009) was collected. The results indicated that there is a significant relationship between discretionary accruals (as proxy of accrual-based earnings management) and excess investment. This suggests that firm’s investment behavior is influenced by accrual-based earnings management. The results also indicate that there is a significant relationship between discretionary accruals (as independent variable) and firm’s excess investment in the period afterwards

Investors and creditors use income and its components to evaluate cash flows, investments and granted loans in different ways and for different purposes. This study uses panel data analysis to examine the relations among earnings quality, information asymmetry and costs of equity holders. The study sample consists of 72 companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange in the period of 1387 to 1391. The independent variables that affect cost of equity risk management and information asymmetry, take market risk, firm size, the ratio of book value to market value, the stock price and trading volume. Also, earnings quality for firm/year data have been measured, using accounting data in a 5 year period and rolling linear regression. Hypothesis test results indicated a significant positive relationship between information asymmetry and cost of equity, and a significant negative relationship between information asymmetry and earnings quality. The results also showed a non-significant relationship between earnings quality and the cost of equity.

Most researches show that human power in processing information is limited. Also, information structure may influence this process highly. In this study, to evaluate different decision making methods, a cognitive and behavioral model is used. The fields of this research in the area of territory subject to the theory of information overload and processing Brunswick Leans Model is in the behavioral accounting discipline. This research has a quasi-experimental method. In this study, the experimental group of 176 respondents was classified in four dominant styles of directive, analytical, conceptual, and behavioral sense. Also, the study takes a classification of investors with respect to brain dominant style, cognitive complexity, and the tolerance level under uncertainty situation. The evidence revealed that a left-brain dominant style, on average, spends more time to process information. Also, the analytical decision-making style spends more time than the other styles to process information. The evidence, in addition, showed that the left-brain dominant style, on average, takes more information items to process to make decision. Also, the behavioral decision-making style needs the lowest information items to make decision

Firm’s cash flow as a cheap finance source, may affect the level of investment, and high investment-cash flow sensitivity may cause investment inefficiency. The agency theory implies that managers of the firms with excess cash flow may over-invest for the purpose of private benefits. Additionally, agency costs and conflicts between managers and shareholders may lead to over/under-investment. This study investigates the impact of agency costs on investment-cash flow sensitivity. The target sample includes 103 firms listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) during 2007 to 2011. The research takes logistic regression model to investigate the impact of agency costs on investment-cash flow sensitivity. Results show that agency costs are not the only source of inefficient investment, but could be regarded as the origin of increasing investment-cash flow sensitivity

The results of researches conducted outside of Iran, reflect the effect of managerial ability on earnings quality. Based on the theory, managerial ability positively related to earnings quality, but empirical researches stand in conflict with each other so that based on the results, managerial ability could be related to earnings quality positively as well as negatively. This study clarifies the relationship between managerial ability and accruals quality in listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange. Using the liquidation to proxy for accruals quality, and the part of firm efficiency not affected by the firm specific characteristics to measure managerial ability, DEA and multivariate linear regression have been two models that are applied for statistical analysis. The period of four years from beginning of 1384 to the end of 1387 is considered and the sample of research includes 79 listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange. The results show that there is not significant relationship between accruals quality and managerial ability in the research period

This paper investigates the effects of economic and accounting variables on capital structure of the firms accepted in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), using seemingly unrelated regression equations. In this study, the macroeconomic variables of inflation rate, exchange rate, gross domestic product, interest rate and bank loans, along with the accounting variables of dividend payout and the short-term and long-term debt rates were considered the variables affecting capital structure of the firms accepted in the TSE, using data from 143 firms during 1380 to 1389. The results show that the hypotheses of positive effects of exchange rate, bank loans, dividend payout, short-term debt and long-term debt rates, and of negative effects of inflation rate, gross domestic product, and the interest rate on capital structure of companies in the TSE have been correctly expected

Today, since markets are highly competitive, optimal arrangement of recourses seems important to preserve firm’s position and growth. This is so vital and unavoidable that capital structure of firms may directly affect firms’ value. To maximize utility, firms choose different economic policies during their life cycle. This research aims to answer the question that if life cycle can affect the relationship between capital structure and firm’s value, or not. The answer to the question could be of empirical issue. The period of the study is 1384 to 1389, and data takes 480 year/firm records. The results from statistical tests show that firm’s life cycle affects the relationship between capital structure and firm value, and that the effect is more considerable for growing firms than matured ones. In other words, the explanatory power of statistical study for the model viewed for the growing firms is more than that for the matured firms