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During the last years issues of strategic management accounting have received widespread attention in the accounting literature. Yet the conceptual foundation of most proposals is not clear. This paper presents a theoretical analysis of one of the most prominent approaches of strategic management accounting, i.e., Target Costing. First, the relationship between Target Costing and Life-Cycle-Costing is shown. Secondly, a model based on a mechanism-design-approach is used to answer the question of whether the „Market-into-Company“-method of Target Costing can somehow be endogenized. The model captures problems of asymmetric information, price policy and cost structures (i.e. learning effects etc.). The analysis shows that the more „strategic“ is the firm´s cost function, the less valid is „strategic“ management accounting in terms of the usual way Target Costing is employed.
The main argument in this paper is that new information and communication technologies (ICT) in the financial industry will increase specialisation and competition within the European financial centre system and thereby lead to a ‘re-bundling’ of functions of the various financial centres. Frankfurt plays an interesting role in this development as it is one of the main development centres for ‘financial technology’. With these technologies, remote access to the Frankfurt stock exchange and inter-bank payment system is now feasible from most European cities. This leads to a reduced need for physical presence, which opens up new possibilities for the financial sector’s spatial organisation. However, as financial production is information- and knowledge-intensive, spatial and other types of proximity between financial actors and clients are still essential in many stages. We examine the value chains of three different products (advisory, lending, trading) with regard to different proximities, in order to identify possible patterns of their spatial (re)organisation. From these findings, inferences are drawn for a ‘new’ role for Frankfurt in the European financial centre system.
Economic theory suggests that a commitment by a firm to increased levels of disclosure should lower the information asymmetry component of the firm’s cost of capital. But whi le the theory is compelling, so far empirical results relating increased levels of disclosure to measurable economic benefits have been mixed. One explanation for the mixed results among studies using data from firms publicly registered in the US is that, under current US reporting standards, the disclosure environment is already rich. In this paper, we study German firms that have switched from the German to an international reporting regime (IAS or US -GAAP), thereby committing themselves to increased le vels of disclosure. We show that proxies for the information asymmetry component of the cost of capital for the switching firms, namely the bid-ask spread and trading volume, behave in the predicted direction compared to firms employing the German reporti ng regime.
Traditional tests of the CAPM following the Fama / MacBeth (1973) procedure are tests of the joint hypotheses that there is a relationship between beta and realized return and that the market risk premium is positive. The conditional test procedure developed by Pettengill / Sundaram / Mathur (1995) allows to independently test the hypothesis of a relation between beta and realized returns. Monte Carlo simulations show that the conditional test reliably identifies this relation. In an empirical examination for the German stock market we find a significant relation between beta and return. Previous studies failed to identify this relationship probably because the average market risk premium in the sample period was close to zero. Our results provide a justification for the use of betas estimated from historical return data by portfolio managers.
In international accounting literature there are various approaches to assess the quality of national accounting systems with respect to specific key functions, e.g. the intensity of capital market information. An empirical approach often used measures the quality of disclosure by ranking the national systems with the so-called "disclosure index" (e.g. Choi 1973, Barret 1975, Cooke 1992, Taylor/ Zarzeski 1996). Concentrating on disclosure regulation in contrast to accounting practices, Cooke/ Wallace 1990 construct an index which measures the "degree of financial regulation". They identify groups of countries which can be clearly classified in highly regulated, regulated and moderately regulated national accounting systems.
In our analysis, we want to enrich the idea of the degree of financial disclosure regulation to a concept for evaluating the degree of determination of financial measurement. Assuming that a high degree of determination of a national accounting system leads to more comparable accounts than a low degree, the index can be interpreted as a quality measure of national accounting systems according to the intensity of capital market information. The following hypothesis is to be proved: the degree of disclosure regulation equals the degree of measurement regulation in order to serve the information needs of the national capital markets.
Three groups of different degrees of determination for national accounting systems can be easily identified which are compared to the results of Cooke/ Wallace. For some of the national systems the above hypothesis seems to be appropriate whereas some opposing results can be shown. Possible explanations are presented which can be causally related to these diverging results. They are based on historical developments, the differentiation between rules for individual and group accounts, and on conditions where different degrees seem plausible.
This paper provides a detailed empirical analysis of the call auction procedure on the German stock exchanges. The auction is conducted by the Makler whose position resembles that of a NYSE specialist. We use a dataset which contains information about all individual orders for a sample of stocks traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE). This sample allows us to calculate the cost of transacting in a call market and compare them to the costs of transacting in a continuous market. We find that transaction costs for small transactions in the call market are lower than the quoted spread in the order book of the continuous market whereas transaction costs for large transactions are higher than the spread in the continuous market.
We further address the question whether active participation of the Makler is advantageous. On the one hand he may accomodate order imbalances, increase the liquidity of the market and stabilize prices. On the other hand, the discretion in price setting gives him an incentive to manipulate prices. This may increase return volatility. Our dataset identifies the trades the Maklers make for their own accounts. We eliminate these trades and determine the price that would have obtained without their participation. Comparing this hypothetical price series to the actual transaction prices, we find that Makler participation tends to reduce return volatility. A further analysis shows that the actual prices are much closer to the surrounding prices of the continuous trading session than the hypothetical prices that would have obtained without Makler participation. These results indicate that the Maklers provide a valuable service to the market. We further calculate the profits associated with the positions taken by the Maklers and find that, on average, they do not earn profits on the positions they take. Their compensation is thus restricted to the commissions they receive.
This paper studies the incentives of German firms to voluntarily disclose cash flow statements over time. While cash flow statement are mandated under many GAAP regimes, its disclosure has not been mandatory in Germany until recently. Nevertheless, an increasing number of firms provides cash flow statements voluntarily. These firms are likely to be influenced by recommendations of the German accounting profession, IAS 7 as well as the respective standards of other countries. The idea of the paper is to study this influence by looking at the adoption pattern over time and the format of the cash flow statement. It documents the development of voluntary cash flow statement disclosures by German firms with respect to ”milestones” in the evolution of German professional recommendations and respective international standards. The cross-sectional determinants of voluntary and international cash flow statements are analyzed using probit regressions and factor analysis. The results are generally consistent with the idea that capital-market forces drive voluntary cash flow statements that are in line with international reporting practice.
Our article integrates the manager’s care in the literature on auditor’s liability. With unobservable efforts, we face a double moral hazard setting. It is well-known that efficient liability rules without punitive damages do not exist under these circumstances. However, we show that the problem can be solved through strict liability, contingent auditing fees, and fair insurance contracts. Neither punitive damages nor deductibles above the damages are required.
Discretionary disclosure theory suggests that firms' incentives to provide proprietary versus nonproprietary information differ markedly. To test this conjecture, the paper investigates the incentives of German firms to voluntarily disclose business segment reports and cash flow statements in their annual financial reports. While the former is likely to reveal proprietary information to competitors, the latter is less proprietary in nature. Using these proxies for proprietary and non-proprietary disclosures, respectively, I find that the determinants or at least their relative magnitudes differ in a way consistent with the proprietary cost hypothesis. That is, cash flow statement disclosures appear to be governed primarily by capital-market considerations, whereas segment disclosures are more strongly associated with proxies for product-market and proprietary-cost considerations.
Compliance with prevailing accounting standards is induced if the expected disadvantage due to sanctions imposed if non-compliance is detected outweighs the advantage of noncompliant accounting choices. The expected disadvantage materialises the threat potential of sanctions imposed by an enforcement agency. The capital market mechanism unfolds an important threat potential if companies expect an adverse share price reaction suite to enforcement actions. Enforcement agencies in turn can make use of this capital market related sanction by releasing information on defections to the market after the settlement of an investigation. The present contribution analyses the capital market reaction on accounting standards enforcement activities of the British Financial Reporting Review Panel (FRRP). After a brief introduction into the legal basis and working procedure of the Panel, the analysis of its activities will serve a dual purpose: firstly, the significance of capital market related sanctions for the overall enforcement regime will be elaborated upon. Secondly, the extent to which capital market related sanctions accomplish their function within the overall enforcement regime will be assessed empirically. The results of the empirical analysis suggest that the capital market related sanctioning by the FRRP may not unfold a sufficient threat potential which is a prerequisite for compliance enhancement.