光华讲坛

主题：Understanding the Changing Cross-Sectional Relation between Accruals and Cash Flows

主讲人：上海财经大学会计学院 董雅姝

主持人：西南财经大学会计学院 陈磊

时间：2019年12月03日（周二）下午15：00—16：30

地点：西南财经大学柳林校区通博楼D301

主办单位：会计学院 科研处

主讲人简介：

董雅姝，香港中文大学会计学博士，现任上海财经大学会计学院助理教授。研究方向包括资本市场、财务信息披露、债务合同。

内容提要：

We find that the cross-sectional relation between cash flow from operations (CFO) and total accruals, broadly defined as the difference between earnings and CFO, varies among business types. Businesses show a less negative cross-sectional relation between accruals and CFO when they have higher intangible intensity, shorter operating cycles, more extreme positive or negative performance shocks, and more non-CFO accruals (i.e. investing plus financing accruals). Collectively, these factors explain up to 54% of the variation in the accruals–CFO relation. The accruals–CFO relation also became less negative over time, due in part to the time trend of these factors. Thus, current accrual quality models that use the strength of the negative accruals–CFO relation to assess accrual quality must control for these economic factors and their time trends. Furthermore, the measured accruals often also include non-CFO accruals, which do not necessarily have a negative relation with CFO. In assessing accrual quality, it is therefore important to relate accruals and cash flows of the same type (i.e., working capital accruals to CFO and non-CFO accruals to either cash flows from investing and financing).