Timeliness and conservatism: Changes over time in the properties of accounting income in France

Hervé Stolowy () and Yuan Ding ()
Additional contact information
Yuan Ding: GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the changes in the properties of accounting incomepublished by French listed companies during the 1990s. It also analyzes the impact of certaincorporate characteristics such as size, international financing, and audit firm, on such changes.Design/methodology/approach – Multivariate regression is used.Findings – In French companies, good news has a delayed impact on earnings, as accountants onlyallow the effect of such news to be recognized gradually in the earnings measure. Conversely, badnews is reflected rapidly in earnings. The results confirm a general upward trend in the degree ofconservatism of accounting earnings over the period as a whole. However, except for firm size, noneof the corporate characteristics examined can predict a company's accounting earnings properties.Research limitations/implications – In future studies, it will be interesting to develop and testother possible corporate and/or institutional factors relating to accounting earnings properties.Practical implications – The paper provides an insight analysis on the evolution of institutionalenvironment in France and its impact on accounting.Originality/value – First study on properties of accounting income in France.

Keywords: Multivariate analysis; Accounting; Earnings; Corporate finances; France; Paper type; Research paper (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Review of Accounting & Finance, 2006, 5 (2), pp.92-107

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00119586

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().