Discretionary Accounting Choices: A Debt covenants Based Signalling Approach

Pascal Frantz

Accounting and Business Research, 1997, vol. 27, issue 2, 99-110

Abstract: This paper seeks to explain the discretionary accounting choices made by managers in a world characterised by asymmetric information between managers and investors. It considers a firm whose capital structure consists of both debt and equity, a manager who protects the interests of the firm's existing shareholders, and a financial market. The manager is committed to engage in an investment opportunity and needs to raise some equity to finance it. He is furthermore endowed with some private information about his firm's future earnings. The paper shows how, under certain conditions, the manager may credibly communicate his private information to investors through his accounting choices. In this equilibrium, the selection of balance sheet strengthening and income increasing accounting choices signals unfavourable information while the use of balance-sheet weakening and income- decreasing accounting choices signals favourable private information. The latter firms should thus experience positive abnormal returns around the announcement dates of their accounting choices.

Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1080/00014788.1997.9729537

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