Accruals, investment, and future performance
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Authors
Chu, J
Publication Date
2019-12Journal Title
Abacus: a journal of accounting, finance and business studies
ISSN
0001-3072
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Volume
55
Issue
4
Pages
783-809
Type
Article
This Version
AM
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Chu, J. (2019). Accruals, investment, and future performance. Abacus: a journal of accounting, finance and business studies, 55 (4), 783-809. https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12177
Abstract
It is well documented that accounting measures of investment, such as working capital and capital expenditures, negatively predict future stock returns. The earnings fixation hypothesis suggests that investors overestimate and overvalue the persistence of the accrual component of earnings. Another stream of the literature argues that since accruals capture growth, the accruals anomaly can be explained by the investment anomaly which finds that firms that grow their assets tend to have lower future returns. As empirical proxies for accruals and investment are either positively correlated or interchangeably used, it is difficult to distinguish between the competing hypotheses in empirical tests. This study contributes to the debate by identifying two special economic settings in which the two explanations offer diverging predictions. First, investment in research and development (R&D) represents an investment expenditure that reduces earnings but is not subject to accrual accounting. Thus, the earnings fixation hypothesis predicts a positive relation between increases in R&D investments and future returns, whereas the investment anomaly predicts a negative relation. Second, firms operating with negative working capital have working capital accruals that are negatively correlated with other forms of investment and growth. Therefore, while the earnings fixation hypothesis still predicts a negative relation between accruals and future returns in this setting, the investment explanation predicts a positive relation. For both sets of tests, the empirical evidence supports the earnings fixation hypothesis for the accruals anomaly and is inconsistent with the notion that the investment anomaly subsumes earnings fixation in explaining future stock returns.
Embargo Lift Date
2021-12-01
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12177
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/299085
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