Studies in international capital markets.

摘要

This dissertation investigates the properties and pricing of accounting information internationally. The first paper investigates the subsequent return implications of accruals for a sample of large, well-developed equity markets and assesses whether the accrual anomaly, if present, results from similar institutional features within each market. I investigate the returns implications of accruals in 17 countries over the 1989 to 2003 time period. The results of country-specific analysis indicate that the accrual anomaly is a global phenomenon. After decomposing accruals into components, I find, in general, that accrual mispricing is largest for working capital accruals, specifically current asset accruals. However, the results of further analysis suggest that there is no dominant factor that explains the accrual anomaly internationally. Overall, the results indicate that the accrual anomaly is present in international markets yet the factors) driving the accrual anomaly appear to vary across markets.; The second paper investigates the influence of ownership structure on earnings conservatism and the informativeness of prices with respect to future earnings information in the international setting. I use the proportion of shares that are closely held to capture differences in firms' ownership structures. I posit that the reliance on private communications as a means of monitoring management will reduce the demand for conservative financial information for firms with greater closely held ownership. I find that firms with greater closely held ownership domiciled in countries influenced by the Germanic legal regime report less conservative earnings. Furthermore, I find that within the Germanic legal regime, greater closely held ownership is associated with more information about future changes in earnings being reflected in returns. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of how firms' ownership structures affect the properties of earnings in international markets.