archives@tulane.edu / Changing fiscal year-end (FYE) unequivocally impacts time-series consistency, yet firms appear to be willing to change it. Enhanced comparability with industry peers appears to be a significant driver of this change. Aligning FYE with industry peers is associated with an improved information environment as proxied by a significant increase in analyst coverage, the number of forecasts per analyst, and institutional ownership. Additionally, loss-making firms also appear more likely to switch FYEs, ostensibly to dump losses in the less-than-12-month stub period created by the transition. Examining changes to and from December separately, I find that small firms are more likely to move to a non- December FYE, suggesting that accounting costs such as audit fees are a consideration in changing FYE. On average, the market reacts significantly to the FYE change disclosure. / 1 / Zhiwei Zhu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_122083 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Contributors | Zhu, Zhiwei (author), De Franco, Gus (Thesis advisor), A.B. Freeman School of Business Accounting (Degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | electronic, pages: 66 |
| Rights | No embargo, Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law. |
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