Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
3-2022
Abstract
Existing studies indicated that firm debt holders can use the credit default swap (CDS) market to hedge their credit risk, and thus they would reduce their monitoring of the firms, leading to largely distressed firms shirking and increasing positive abnormal earnings accruals. Besides providing insurance, however, the CDS spreads also perform price discovery of credit risk information sought by trade creditors and potential lenders who are not protected. High absolute abnormal discretionary accruals or bad earnings quality, especially negative abnormal accruals, would lead adverse CDS price signals that are very costly to the firm. This compels the firm under nondistressed conditions to be able to improve cash holdings, cash flows, working capital, and earnings reporting quality. Our new results indicate that the channels of improvement in earnings quality are through a firm's large accounts payable and low cash holdings related to trade credit exposures. In the longer run, this leads to higher profitability and improved firm value. Thus, the generation of public information via the CDS market reduces information asymmetry and can enforce greater discipline in discretionary accounts reporting.
Keywords
credit default swaps, earnings quality, absolute abnormal earnings accruals, trade credit exposures, risk management
Discipline
Corporate Finance | Finance and Financial Management
Research Areas
Finance
Publication
Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance
First Page
1
Last Page
28
ISSN
0148-558X
Identifier
10.1177/0148558X221081990
Publisher
SAGE Publications (UK and US)
Citation
CHENG, Hao and LIM, Kian Guan.
CDS channels of influence on discretionary accruals. (2022). Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance. 1-28.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7015
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1177/0148558X221081990