What drives the increased informativeness of earnings announcements over time?

Daniel W. Collins; Oliver Zhen Li; Hong Xie

doi:10.1007/s11142-007-9055-y

What drives the increased informativeness of earnings announcements over time?

Daniel W. Collins, Oliver Zhen Li, Hong Xie

Accountancy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

Landsman and Maydew (J Acc Res 40:797-808, 2002) document that the information content of earnings announcements has increased over the past three decades, and Francis et al. (Acc Rev, 77:515-546, 2002) conclude that expanded concurrent disclosures in firms' earnings announcements, especially the inclusion of detailed income statements, explain this increase. We posit and find that the temporal increase in the intensity of the market's reaction to Street earnings offers a competing explanation for the Landsman and Maydew finding. We also find that expanded concurrent disclosure of GAAP-based information contributes to the temporal increase in the information content of earnings announcements. However, unlike Francis et al., we find that the temporal increase in concurrent balance sheet and cash flow statement information dominates concurrent income statement information once we control for Street earnings.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-30
Number of pages	30
Journal	Review of Accounting Studies
Volume	14
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-007-9055-y
State	Published - Mar 2009

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions made by Russell Lundholm (the editor), an anonymous referee, Paul Beck, Brian Cloyd, Rajib Doogar, Neil Fargher, Susan Krische, Jeff Miller, James Myers, Theodore Sougiannis, Martin Wu, David Ziebart, and workshop participants at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We thank Thomson Financial for providing analyst forecast data through the Institutional Brokers Estimate System (I/B/E/S). Dan Collins and Hong Xie thank the Department of Accounting at the University of Iowa and the Department of Accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively, for financial support.

Keywords

Abnormal returns
GAAP earnings
Information content
Return volatility
Street earnings
Trading volume

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Accounting
Business, Management and Accounting (all)

Access to Document

10.1007/s11142-007-9055-y

Cite this

@article{0d21ead40c524871b3b60fd7e59d31da,

title = "What drives the increased informativeness of earnings announcements over time?",

abstract = "Landsman and Maydew (J Acc Res 40:797-808, 2002) document that the information content of earnings announcements has increased over the past three decades, and Francis et al. (Acc Rev, 77:515-546, 2002) conclude that expanded concurrent disclosures in firms' earnings announcements, especially the inclusion of detailed income statements, explain this increase. We posit and find that the temporal increase in the intensity of the market's reaction to Street earnings offers a competing explanation for the Landsman and Maydew finding. We also find that expanded concurrent disclosure of GAAP-based information contributes to the temporal increase in the information content of earnings announcements. However, unlike Francis et al., we find that the temporal increase in concurrent balance sheet and cash flow statement information dominates concurrent income statement information once we control for Street earnings.",

keywords = "Abnormal returns, GAAP earnings, Information content, Return volatility, Street earnings, Trading volume",

author = "Collins, {Daniel W.} and Li, {Oliver Zhen} and Hong Xie",

note = "Funding Information: Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions made by Russell Lundholm (the editor), an anonymous referee, Paul Beck, Brian Cloyd, Rajib Doogar, Neil Fargher, Susan Krische, Jeff Miller, James Myers, Theodore Sougiannis, Martin Wu, David Ziebart, and workshop participants at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We thank Thomson Financial for providing analyst forecast data through the Institutional Brokers Estimate System (I/B/E/S). Dan Collins and Hong Xie thank the Department of Accounting at the University of Iowa and the Department of Accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively, for financial support.",

year = "2009",

month = mar,

doi = "10.1007/s11142-007-9055-y",

language = "English",

volume = "14",