Using a broad sample of the largest European companies, I examine whether the two governance mechanisms, namely (i) independent monitoring by a board of directors and (ii) grants and disclosures of incentive-based executive pay, are substitutes for one another. I find that companies with proportionately more executives on their boards of directors grant greater incentive-based pay to their executives, and improve the transparency of their pay disclosure. The findings are consistent with the efficient contracting argument, which predicts that greater incentive-based pay and pay disclosure transparency mitigate agency problems generated by boards dependent upon management

Despite the need for accurate oil and gas reserves estimates which honor disclosure requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a number of exploration and production companies have allegedly overstated and subsequently written down their reserves during the last 20 years. Reserves write-downs are of great interest to numerous groups involved in the reserves estimation process and outcome, including estimators, managers, investors, creditors, and regulators. Considering the magnitude and nature of some alleged overstatement cases, it appears that some of these parties may benefit from a better understanding of reserves reporting, the relative risk of overstatements, the regulatory environment and enforcement procedures, and identifying questionable reserves data. After discussing the context and importance of reserves and write-downs, there is a detailed examination of the SEC, including the agency's reserves reporting requirements, and their enforcement methods. A number of alleged overstatement and write-down "case studies" are presented, with details on the specific Federal Laws alleged to have been violated by corporations or individuals and then cited by the SEC and shareholder lawsuits. We also conclude that there may be greater write-down potential due to the updated SEC reserves reporting guidelines. A comprehensive series of systematic questions have been compiled and quick-look graphical techniques have been developed that may be used to gain insight into -and potentially raise questions about- an operator's reserves data.

The Enron collapse in 2001 has resulted in an increasing attention to corporate governance. Even in Sweden, some scandals have occurred, for example Skandia, ABB, Trustor; a parallel could be drawn, implying that these scandals have resulted in increased attention to corporate governance. Corporate governance concerns the relationship between a corporation’s management, board of directors, shareholders and other stakeholders. The problems with the relationship between managers and share-holders are referred to as the principle-agent problem. The increase in corporate governance disclosure can be seen as a way by the corporations to regain the trust from the shareholders. Can agency theory be used to explain why some corporation disclose more corporate governance information than others? The purpose with this master thesis is, with starting point in agency theory, to contribute to the understanding of which factors that influence corporations to disclose corporate governance information in the annual reports. For this thesis, a quantitative research has been performed. Annual reports from corporations listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange have been examined, to be able to develop a corporate governance disclosure index and to measure 15 characteristics, derived from the agency theory and two control variables. The data was analysed in SPSS , using both linear and multiple regressions. The analysis showed that role duality actually measured if a corporation had a foreign parent company and corporations listed on the O-list other on Stockholm Stock Exchange served as proxies for smaller corporations. Therefore, it was possible to con-clude that corporations were influenced by the origin of the parent company and the size of the corporation to disclose corporate governance information. Another conclusion was that corporate governance characteristics derived from agency theory is not appropriate when trying to find factors that influence corporations to disclose corporate governance information. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it is inappropriate to take the starting point in the agency theory.

<p><font size="4" face="TrebuchetMS,BoldItalic"><font size="4" face="TrebuchetMS,BoldItalic"> <p>The study used a qualitative approach. Fourteen (14) in-depth interviews were conducted with English and Luganda speaking adult male and female clients on antiretroviral treatment (ART), in TASO Mulago. A focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted with 8 purposively selected ART clients who were considered to be &lsquo / expert&rsquo / clients in TASO Mulago. These participants were expert clients/ peer educators, who were open about their HIV status and have been involved in HIV/AIDS education and advocacy. The individual interviews and the focus group discussion were transcribed verbatim, and subjected to thematic and content analysis. Male and female participants who were married (primary relationship) disclosed their sero-status to their sexual partners, while few of those cohabiting or in steady relationship (only one) disclosed to their partners. Enabling factors to disclose to current sexual partners included: desire for partner to get treatment, need for the partner&rsquo / s support, having prior knowledge of partner&rsquo / s HIV status, out of anger, and having anxiety about the future. Some of the barriers to disclosure included: fear of blame and disappointing the partner, fear of abandonment, fear of stigma and discrimination. Participants suggested that couple counselling and testing, economic independence, peer support and involvement of the TASO staff in disclosure should be considered to facilitate or promote disclosure to sexual partners.</p> </font></font></p>

This thesis provides new insight into the information environments of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and analysts’ equity reports. The thesis consists of four essays that address the issues of firm disclosure and the relevance of information for analysts and investors in the capital market. The research question concerns the role of accounting information on the capital market. The present thesis entails the following analyses: (i) An analysis of the content in IPO prospectuses (ii) Cross-sectional analyses on factors affecting prospectus disclosure (iii) An analysis of the short- and long-run returns of IPOs (iv) An analysis of the relevance of IPO disclosure on IPO valuation (v) An analysis of non-financial information content in analysts’ reports (vi) An analysis of the valuation relevance of non-financial information The first essay examines prospectus disclosure and looks at explanations as to the factors that drive the disclosure. The findings reveal that IPO firms provide more information in their prospectus in comparison with non-IPO firms. The second essay analyzes how prospectus disclosure affects IPO valuation in the secondary market. It is hypothesized that increased disclosure in the prospectus decreases valuation uncertainty, which implicates lower underpricing for the IPO firm. The essay shows that Swedish IPOs are underpriced. However, disclosure is not found to be related to underpricing. The third essay examines the extent and type of forecasts provided in the prospectuses and the value relevance of this information. The study reveals a reduction in profit and sales forecast disclosures while at the same time shows an increase in sales growth forecasts for the period 1996-2004. The essay finds that forecast information is particularly relevant to investors and analysts. Forecast disclosing firms demonstrate a significantly lower underpricing and lower long-run return compared with non-forecast disclosing firms. The fourth essay concerns the valuation relevance of non-financial information contained in analysts’ equity reports. The essay notes that valuation relevance of non-financial information is positively related to the size of the target firm. Moreover, analysts were observed to rely more heavily on forward-looking non-financial information than historical non-financial information in their valuation.

The implementation of IFRS/IAS accounting standards in Sweden had the intension to harmonize the accounting practices within the EU and increase transparency into the firms. However since the implementation there have been reports and studies showing the lack of compliance with the disclosure requirements regarding impairment tests of Goodwill. According to IFRS 3 Goodwill should no longer be amortized but should undergo an impairment test at least once a year to evaluate its true value. The impairment test is made by the firms themselves on very subjective assumptions. These assumptions should be disclosed according to IAS 36 paragraph 134 in the annual report to enable transparency. So far the full compliance with this rule has been questionable. This study aims to elucidate possible reasons for why firms leave out the required information in IAS 36 paragraph 134 and how authorized public accountants reason around the reasons given. To fulfill the aim of the study an inductive research method was used. The data was gathered through the use of qualitative interviews with authorized public accountants some of them with special expertise in the field. The empirical findings from the interviews contained a number of reasons for why companies do not disclose the information in IAS 36 paragraph 134. Among the most common were the risk of exposure, decreased flexibility, ignorance and non adequate internal reporting procedures. The study’s analysis use institutional theories to point out additional explanations for how disclosure requirements are handled. One finding is the tendency for firms to mimic each other, a behavior called isomorphism. The conclusion of the study is a discovery of an underlying unwillingness to write-down goodwill and thereby an unwillingness to give full disclosure in connection to the impairment test. Firms feel that the information is related to their competitive edge and thus exposes them too much. The authors also raise reasonable doubt to whether the IFRS/IAS standards have fulfilled their intension with increased transparency in the case of goodwill accounting.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

No description available.

Previous research has shown how venting one’s feelings can reduce the negative emotions of a consumption experience. This study proposes a general process of how consumers with feelings of unfairness due to a negative consumption experience can achieve emotional disclosure and reduced unfairness by posting online reviews. By using an experimental design with scenarios, this study tests how the perceived unfairness in this process is affected by the party encouraging the consumer to post an online review and the consumer’s public commitment. A student sample was divided into four groups and the perception of unfairness was compared between the groups depending on whether the party encouraging the feedback was a company perceived to be responsible for the sense of unfairness or an independent party and whether when the consumer was identifiable or anonymous to see if public commitment had an effect. Results showed that emotional disclosure was found to reduce the perceived unfairness in all groups. There was no significant difference between being encouraged by the company or independent party. Furthermore, no public commitment was in effect, even when participants’ answers were thought to become known to others. The results indicate that companies may prefer to encourage consumers to provide feedback themselves rather than using a third party and that posting online reviews will not make the consumer committed to their feeling of unfairness.

This dissertation investigates the relation between firm disclosure, analyst forecast bias, and the cost of equity capital (COEC). Since analyst forecast bias is associated with both implied COEC estimates and disclosure, it is important to control for or remove it from COEC estimates when estimating the relation between disclosure and ex ante expected returns. I begin my analysis by predicting and removing systematic ex ante bias from analyst forecasts to produce de-biased analyst forecasts that better proxy for the market’s ex ante earnings expectations. I use these de-biased analyst forecasts to produce estimates of ex ante expected returns, both at the portfolio- and the firm-level. In addition, I develop a novel estimate of ex ante expected returns by applying Vuolteenaho’s (2002) return decomposition framework to ex post realized returns and accounting data. Finally, using several techniques to control for analyst forecast bias and self-selection bias, I find theoretically consistent evidence of a negative association between regular disclosure and ex ante expected returns. I predict and show that inferences can change when analyst forecast bias is controlled for.