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This study explores the influence of air pollution on the corporate bond market in China. An air pollution premium is documented, whereby bonds issued in more polluted areas are associated with higher offering yields at issue in the primary market and higher yield spreads in the secondary market. The statistically and economically significant air pollution premium is robust to a battery of sensitivity checks. The air pollution premium is associated with rising investor attention to climate risk in financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether owner-managers of small firms use their compensation strategically to change reported earnings. We identify an institutional setting, Denmark, in which the owner-manager has the discretion to shift compensation from salary to dividends and hence increase reported earnings at almost no direct cost due to approximate tax neutrality between the two income streams. Three findings emerge. First, owner-managers are twice as likely to decrease their salary when doing so can result in meeting or beating the zero earnings benchmark. Second, those decreasing their salaries to beat the benchmark are 45% more likely to increase dividends simultaneously than those who can beat the benchmark but do not. This indicates that reporting incentives shape compensation shifting. Third, owner-managed firms enjoy about 6% (EUR 1070) lower interest rates (interest expenses), than firms reporting losses, when they beat the benchmark by simultaneously decreasing salaries and increasing dividends. Our results highlight that owner-managers can manage reported earnings by altering their own compensation, which has economic consequences for the firm. This has implications for users of owner-managed firms' financial reports because reported earnings would seem a poor contracting signal for these firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While earnings management has been employed to conceal corporations' true performance, concerns have risen regarding its adverse impact on financing costs, particularly the cost of debt. This study, therefore, aims to examine the impact of earnings management on the cost of debt in Vietnam. Using data on 197 companies during 2016-2020 in a wide variety of industries and a quantile regression approach, which allows different magnitudes in the impact of earnings management on the cost of debt, the study indicates the negative impact of earnings management on the cost of debt. Earnings management leads to a higher cost of debt. The result supports the garbling theory that Vietnamese firms engage in earnings management exhibit a higher cost of debt as a form of punishment for gaming earnings. In Vietnam, the impact of earnings management is more severe at high levels of debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effect of ESG controversies and their moderating role in ESG performance and the cost of equity and overall, short-term and long-term debt capital relationship in European listed companies. Design/methodology/approach: The study employs two-way fixed effects panel linear regression models on the balanced longitudinal dataset of 231 European non-financial companies listed in the MSCI Europe Index in 2017–2022. To check the robustness, the study utilises the fixed effects logistic regression models with heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors. Findings: The study reveals the significant effect of ESG performance (negative) and ESG controversies (negative) on the cost of debt capital and the substantial moderating effect of ESG controversies (positive). Additionally, it provides empirical evidence of the crossover moderating effect of ESG controversies in ESG performance and cost of equity relationship. Research limitations/implications: The findings contribute to corporate practice and empirically support legitimacy and stakeholder theories. Practical implications: Companies can utilise the results to proactively enhance their internal policies and behaviour to align with ESG practices and avoid ESG controversies, which will translate into reduced equity capital costs for shareholders and a lower cost of debt capital charged by creditors. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to comprehensively investigate the influence of ESG controversies and their moderating effect in the context of the equity and debt capital cost for European listed companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising costs, complex supply chain management, and stringent regulations have created significant financial burdens on business sustainability, calling for new and rapid strategies to help enterprises transform. Supply chain digitalization (SCD) has emerged as a promising approach in the context of digitalization and globalization, with the potential to reduce an enterprise's debt costs. Developing a strategic framework for SCD that effectively reduces the cost of debt (CoD) has become a key academic challenge, critical for ensuring business sustainability. To this end, under the perspective of four flows, SCD is deconstructed into four distinct features: logistics flow digitalization (LFD), product flow digitalization (PFD), information flow digitalization (IFD), and capital flow digitalization (CFD). To precisely measure the four SCD features and the dependent variable, COD, publicly available data from Chinese listed manufacturing enterprises such as annual report texts and financial statement data are collected, and various data mining technologies are also used to conduct data measurement and data processing. To comprehensively investigate the impact pattern of SCD on CoD, we employed the explainable machine learning methodology for data analysis. This methodology involved in-depth data discussions, cross-validation utilizing a series of machine learning models, and the utilization of Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) to explain the results generated by the models. To conduct sensitivity analysis, permutation feature importance (PFI) and partial dependence plots (PDPs) were also incorporated as supplementary explanatory methods, providing additional insights into the model's explainability. Through the aforementioned research processes, the following findings are obtained: SCD can play a role in reducing CoD, but the effects of different SCD features are not exactly the same. Among the four SCD features, LFD, PFD, and IFD have the potential to significantly reduce CoD, with PFD having the most substantial impact, followed by LFD and IFD. In contrast, CFD has a relatively weak impact, and its role is challenging to discern. These findings provide significant guidance for enterprises in furthering their digitalization and supply chain development, helping them optimize SCD strategies more accurately to reduce CoD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private firms in China are contributing immensely to the country's economic growth. However, increasing the capital cost of private firms in China is a big challenge that needs to be addressed. This study intends to examine the role of optimal corporate social responsibility (CSR) investment while lowering the cost of equity capital and debt capital in Chinese private firms. In addition, this research study reveals the moderating role of state‐owned shares in the association between CSR and private firms' capital costs. By taking a sample of Chinese private firms from 2011 to 2021, this study employs the CSR optimization method. The findings show that CSR optimization tends to reduce the cost of equity capital and debt capital in Chinese private firms. Further investigation shows that over‐investment in CSR increases the cost of capital. Moreover, an increase in state‐owned shares strengthens the negative relationship between the cost of debt capital and optimal CSR investments. The present study's findings are helpful for Chinese firms to undertake optimal CSR investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study argues that different definitions/perceptions of risk information could affect investors' decisions differently. Using a sample of 328 non‐financial UK firms and departing from existing literature, this study measures corporate risk disclosure (RD) via computerized content analysis to capture four different perspectives of defining RD. This study investigates (i) the effects of these RD measures on the Cost of Capital (COC), (ii) the influence of analysts' coverage on the relationship between RD and COC, and (iii) whether the RD nature (favourable/unfavourable) might affect COC differently. Lenders and equity holders are found not to consider any risk information expressed as a variation around a target, while only lenders consider risk information that reveals negative outcomes. However, lenders and equity holders consider risk information that expresses negative and positive outcomes together. Besides, firms that disclose extra risk information and have a large analyst following suffer from a higher Cost of Equity (COE) compared with those with fewer analysts following. Additionally, lenders impose a lower interest rate on firms with a higher unfavourable RD, while equity holders ask for lower returns from the firms with a higher favourable RD. The study has significant implications for capital market participants, researchers, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes that naming a firm eponymously is a mechanism that small private firms can use to signal their superior financial performance and commitment to fulfill debt contract obligations. Using 621,614 small private firms in Europe over the period 2008–2018, we find that small private eponymous firms pay significantly lower interest on their debts and have more long-term debt than non-eponymous firms. Our findings are robust to various controls and placebo tests. Additional analyses show that eponymy lowers the cost of debt and facilitates long-term debt via reputation signaling and private information. We also document that the effect of eponymy on debt contracting is most pronounced when there is less financial development and when firms' dependence on external financing is low, consistent with the idea that high-quality firms opt for eponymy when they consider less external financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of tax avoidance on the cost of debt with tax risk as a moderating variable titled "The Effect of Tax Avoidance on The Cost of Debt with Tax Risk as A Moderating Variable". The data examined in this research comes from secondary data in the form of financial reports presented by the company. The companies that will be researched are infrastructure, transportation & logistics, property & real estate, and technology listed on the IDX for the 2019-2022 period listed on the IDX. Based on the object of this research, a total of 104 financial reports are observation data. This research uses the Descriptive Statistics Test, the Classical Assumption Test and the Multicollinearity Test as stages to test the normality of the data. Then, there is multiple linear analysis, which is continued with the Coefficient of Determination Test and ends with hypothesis testing via the T and F tests. The results obtained are tax. Avoidance positively affects the cost of debt, so tax risk weakens the interaction of tax avoidance with the cost of debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing societal focus on addressing environmental and social issues has spurred a shift towards circular production and consumption models. In this scenario, the implementation of circular economy (CE) practices has attracted the attention of scholars, professionals and institutions. The relevance of the CE has shed light on the importance of communicating efforts and achievements in relation to the implementation of circular models. Therefore, from an academic point of view, several scholars have started to explore some aspects related to CE disclosure (CED). Despite this, a relatively unexplored trend pertains to the effects of the CED, especially regarding the use of social media to disseminate information. In order to fill the gap, this study aims to investigate the effect of the dissemination of CE information via Twitter on the cost of debt. To this end, a dictionary‐based content analysis is employed to quantify the amount of CE information disseminated via Twitter. Additionally, a panel regression analysis is conducted to test the impact of the CED on the cost of debt across a sample of 378 observations (an unbalanced panel of 132 firms for the period 2019–2021). The results indicate the presence of a negative relationship between the level of the CED and the cost of debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and family firms affect the cost of debt (COD) using a sample of companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange between 2017 and 2020. Ordinary least square regression was applied to investigate this association. This study also addresses the endogeneity problem using the generalized method of moments (GMM). This study finds that CSR lowers a company's COD. Firms with more CSR reporting minimize information asymmetry and improve their reputation. Next, we investigate whether family ownership can moderate the relationship between CSR and the COD. These findings support the hypothesis that family ownership moderates the relationship between CSR and COD. It is possible that family businesses use CSR to maintain a good reputation among their stakeholders, thus producing more CSR reports. The findings contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence on how CSR and family firms experience a lower COD capital in the emerging economy context of Indonesia. Furthermore, this study provides academic implications by investigating whether family ownership can be a moderator variable in the association between CSR and COD. The study also has practical implications for practitioners and regulators in creating policies that promote better CSR initiatives and corporate governance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the ESG performance–systemic risk (SR) nexus among Indian companies. Using the beta coefficient from the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and statistical analysis, it explores how ESG performance affects SR. The findings reveal that firms with higher ESG scores have lower SR sensitivity. Notably, there is a significant difference in risk sensitivity between high- and low-ESG-rated companies, with ESG effects being less pronounced in high-cap firms compared to low-cap firms. Conversely, large firms, older firms, and those with lower borrowing costs show a diminished effect of ESG ratings on their SR sensitivity. These results underscore the importance of firm-specific characteristics in determining the efficacy of ESG strategies in risk mitigation. This study reveals that ESG performance reduces SR, with market valuation affecting this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the influence of uncertainty on corporate leverage for 6248 Indian firms for the period 2011– 2021. We find that their leverage tends to fall when policy uncertainty increases. Further, we investigate the two channels through which policy uncertainty affects corporate leverage: demand and supply channels. We find that policy uncertainty increases the burden of debt financing. Furthermore, companies are inclined towards reducing their investment demand during periods of higher uncertainty. Both of these factors contribute to lower debt financing and leverage. Our findings are robust to endogeneity concerns and diverse model identifications using alternate measures of leverage and policy uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study analyses the impact of financial reputation on the cost of debt financing for Indian companies. In doing so, panel regression analysis is performed using firm-specific data on 395 Indian listed firms covering 2002–2017. The paper uses market capitalization as a benchmark of financial reputation. For robustness check, excess of market value over book value is also used as a proxy of financial reputation. The study found that the reputation of a firm in financial markets plays a vital role in determining the cost of financing. The results provide evidence supporting a significant negative relationship between financial reputation and the cost of debt. The findings provide motivation for corporate managers to invest in reputation-building activities to reduce the cost of borrowing. The relevance of reputation in lowering the cost of debt capital has garnered limited attention, especially in emerging economies like India. This study is a preliminary attempt to link two strands of research in the Indian context: financial reputation and the cost of debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identifies if sustainable development practices measured through ESG information disclosure are related to stakeholder confidence, leading to a lower cost of debt and equity financing. We also investigate the possible moderating role of real earnings management. We apply a fixed effects panel data analysis to 1659 firm‐year observations of 177 European companies from 2010 to 2019. The results show that investors value ESG disclosure negatively and increase the cost of equity, whereas lenders value it positively and reduce the cost of debt. In addition, when the moderating effect of real earnings management is introduced, the effect of ESG disclosure on the cost of debt decreases, and the effect of ESG disclosure on the cost of equity is reinforced by increasing it. In the presence of real earnings management, investors and lenders seem to think companies use ESG disclosure to legitimise their practices or mislead financing providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a sample of public bond issues by U.S. firms between 2000 and 2019, sourced from the Securities Data Corporation (SDC) New Issues database, we examine the relationship between CEO-friendly boards and the cost of debt. To explore this relationship, we construct proxies for board friendliness based on social connections sourced from the BoardEx database, classifying a board as friendly if it includes at least one outside director who has a social connection with the CEO. Our regression analysis reveals a negative association between CEO-friendly boards and yield spreads and a positive association between CEO-friendly boards and credit ratings. These effects exist after controlling for firm and bond characteristics based on prior literature. The results are robust to an alternative measure of board friendliness and potential endogeneity. These findings imply that firms with a CEO-friendly board experience a lower cost of bond financing. This supports the argument that effective communication between CEOs and directors contributes to the enhancement of creditor interests. Our results carry a practical implication that firms heavily reliant on debt should actively employ CEO-friendly boards. Despite the burgeoning literature on CEO-friendly boards, there is a lack of research on the relationship between CEO-friendly boards and the cost of debt. Our results fill this gap in the extant literature on CEO-friendly boards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractOne of the most pressing issues facing developing economies is how to provide expansion capital for existing businesses. However, this issue is more pressing in China, where private enterprises suffer significant financial constraints from capital market limitations. Therefore, the significance of obtaining third-party loan guarantees rises among private firms in the secondary loan market. This study investigates the relationship between loan guarantees and the firm’s cost of debt and the moderating effect of management earnings forecasts. We find that loan guarantees have a significant negative relationship with the firm’s cost of debt. However, a positive relationship between information asymmetry measures and loan guarantees is more pronounced, suggesting that loan guarantees reduce the significance of information asymmetry issues, which impair borrowing firms’ re-payment ability and increase the credit risk of guarantors and banks. In contrast, frequent and quality management earnings forecasts help firms to build their reputation in the market by reducing the concerns of information asymmetry, information risk, agency problems, and loan repayment with banks, which, in turn, benefit firms in reducing their cost of debt. Our study results are robust to the use of two-stage least square analysis, and Heckman two-stage treatment effect model. This work offers the latest contribution to the recent understanding of the effects of loan guarantees in reducing the cost of debt and the vital role of management earnings forecasts in firms’ growth.

AbstractThis study aims to investigate the relationship between enterprise risk management and cost of debt in the context of developing countries by considering the moderating role of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis period which is suspected to strengthen the negative association between these two variables. Using 310 non-financial sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period of 2018–2021 as samples, this study found that the implementation of effective risk management is associated with lower cost of debt charged by lenders. However, the association between these two variables was not visible during the COVID-19 crisis. These results are robust when sub-sample tests, assessment with alternative ERM measurements, and sensitivity test using the generalized method of moments (GMM) are performed. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to address the direct relationship between enterprise risk management and external funding, especially cost of debt in the context of developing countries. In addition, this study is also the first to provide empirical evidence of the correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic and these two variables in the context of developing countries, specifically Indonesia.

We examine the influence of accounting reporting complexity at the corporate level on firm debt ratings. Utilizing a dataset comprising non-financial firms in the United States from 2011 to 2017, our findings indicate a statistically significant adverse impact of accounting reporting complexity on debt ratings. This suggests that firms characterized by higher accounting reporting complexity (ARC) levels tend to exhibit lower debt ratings. Additionally, our analysis reveals that the cost of debt serves as a crucial mechanism through which ARC influences debt ratings. Overall, firms are advised to enhance communication with stakeholders, collaborate with credit rating agencies, and maintain vigilance in monitoring and adapting to changes in reporting standards and industry practices, contributing to overall financial stability and investor confidence.

This study delves into the interplay between the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and the debt costs incurred by Korean-listed companies, highlighting their pivotal significance in today's corporate ecosystem. Our primary focus is to explore how the extent of media coverage moderates this relationship, thereby shedding light on the pivotal role that public scrutiny plays in shaping a company's financial outcomes. Utilizing the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model, we rigorously control for industry and year effects, as well as firm-specific variations. Additionally, we conduct a series of supplementary analyses and robust tests to further strengthen the credibility of our findings. Our empirical analysis reveals that firms with poor ESG ratings, indicating corporate social irresponsibility, incur higher debt costs in the subsequent period. Notably, this adverse financial impact is significantly alleviated for companies that enjoy higher media coverage. This notable discovery underscores the potential of media scrutiny to reduce the financial burden imposed by inadequate ESG performance. Our results suggest that companies, especially those with limited media attention, should prioritize enhancing their ESG performance to mitigate potential financial implications. Overall, our research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the intersection between corporate social responsibility, media coverage, and financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using panel data for Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2015, this research examines the impact of the green credit policy on the audit fees of heavily polluting firms by adopting a difference-in-difference (DID) model. The results show that the green credit policy increases the audit fees of heavily polluting firms, suggesting that auditors can perceive the risks imposed by the green credit policy on heavily polluting firms. Mechanism tests reveal that the implementation of the green credit policy increases audit fees by increasing the financing cost and reducing the loan maturity. Further research shows that the positive effect is more significant in regions with stronger regulatory environments and higher trust, and among firms without political connections and audited by the top-ten domestic audit firms. The Chinese government should actively encourage third-party financial institutions to participate in firms' environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of financial constraints and financial distress on accounting restatements; specifically, we empirically analyse whether several firm-specific characteristics--namely, the level of leverage, the cost of debt, and the interest coverage ratio--influence the likelihood of an accounting restatement. To do so, we use a sample of Spanish listed companies in the period from 2000 to 2017. The results show that the level and cost of debt and financial distress are associated with a higher incidence of accounting restatements. Our evidence is consistent with the argument that financially constrained firms--that is, firms with higher levels of leverage, especially in the short-term, facing a higher cost of debt--and financially distressed firms probably engage in more aggressive accounting practices or opportunistic reporting to clean up their financial statements, leading to an increase in accounting restatements. Financially constrained firms could be motivated to manage financial statements in order to prevent a debt covenant violation, obtain new financing or obtain financing at a lower cost. In the case of financially distressed firms, the motivation could be to prevent bankruptcy costs. The findings are consistent with previous literature, which has shown that firms employ accounting restatement as an instrument for earnings management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether chief executive officer (CEO) locality affects firms' cost of debt. Drawing upon place attachment theories suggesting individuals develop affective bonds with their hometowns, we find robust evidence that firms employing local CEOs tend to have a lower cost of debt than those with non-local CEOs. More importantly, we find that regional heterogeneity plays an important role in shaping the relationship from economic and cultural perspectives. The effect is more pronounced in regions where the economies and marketisation are less developed. Furthermore, we show that the effect of CEO locality is stronger in regions with collectivism and regions with low social trust. Our findings hold up to numerous robustness checks and endogeneity tests. Overall, our study highlights the prominent role of the geographically segmented CEO labour markets as an intrinsic but underexplored non-contractual factor for value creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent years, a growing body of empirical evidence highlights a positive correlation between ecological innovation and firm value creation. Building on natural resource‐based view and upper echelons theory, this study examines the relationship between environmental innovation and the cost of debt, by verifying whether and to what extent there is a moderation effect due to the board gender diversity. Using a sample of 458 European firms belonging to the healthcare industry, we carried out a cross‐sectional analysis, given that the sample is based on just the fiscal year 2020. The empirical evidence shows that environmental innovation decreases the cost of debt, by reducing company's perceived risk. In addition, board gender diversity negatively moderates the foregoing relationship. Therefore, our study suggests that public policy makers might underpin environmental innovation policies and specific features on board of directors, since they exert relevant implications on firm's value creation and investors' decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Question/Issue: For firms with institutional dual holders, is proxy voting affected by whether the vote is confidential? Does confidential voting affect firms' cost of debt? Research Findings/Insights: Consistent with social exchange theory and reciprocity norms, we find that, in the absence of confidential voting, firms with institutional dual holders gain more favorable votes for proposals and, in particular, for management‐sponsored compensation proposals. Further, these firms pay a higher cost of borrowing. This reciprocity relation does not exist if the firm has confidential voting in place. Theoretical/Academic Implications: The results are consistent with reciprocity norms creating a psychological obligation to repay valuable favors between firm managers and institutional dual holders when proxy votes are not confidential. Practitioner/Policy Implications: The findings support the popular position that confidential voting is in the best interests of shareholders and rigorous external corporate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2012 to 2018, we investigate the externality of the forced resignations of politically connected independent directors on the cost of debt for non-connected peers. Exploiting an exogenous shock caused by the 18th decree, we find that when politically connected independent directors resign from a Chinese listed firm, non-connected peers within the same industry experience a decrease in the cost of debt. Moreover, the sensitivity analyses further show that the above externality is more prominent in a subsample of Chinese listed non-SOEs, and in a subsample of Chinese listed firms operating in more competitive industries as well as in less developed financial markets, indicating that the externality is conditional on ownership type, industry competition and financial market development. Finally, further analyses show that peers tend to issue new debt after the political connection is disrupted. We also find that when peers have a higher creditworthiness and resignation firms have a lower creditworthiness, peers enjoy a lower cost of debt after resignations. These findings suggest that the resignations have a positive externality on peers' cost of debt due to the elimination of preferential treatment and an improved resource allocation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the relationship between board gender diversity and the cost of debt financing in Latin American and Caribbean firms. We implement the Fuzzy Logistic Autoencoder model, using data for 470 firms spanning 2016–2021 from the Eikon Refinitiv Thomson Reuters database. Our findings suggest that the variables independent board, policy board diversity, sustainable development goal 5, executive gender diversity, and governance consistently demonstrated effects on reducing the short‐term and long‐term debt cost over the period analyzed. Consequently, the potential benefits of including women on the board of directors are conducive to improving the firm's reputation, which materializes in reducing the cost of debt. The results offer valuable insights to researchers and investors seeking to understand the role of BGD composition within firms and its financial impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accounting information quality and its relationship with financing decision-making is one of the important issues that attract interest from researchers. However, the way accounting information quality affects financing costs during the COVID-19 pandemic is a topic that has not been explored in domestic research. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of the accounting information quality on the cost of debt and to explore how this effect mainfested during the pandemic of COVID-19. In this regard, the data from 137 firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange for 2012-2022 (1057 firm-years) have been analyzed. The generalized least squares (GLS) approach was employed to fit the models and fixed effects for years and industries were also controlled. The research results for the entire period demonstrate that an increase in accruals quality (as a proxy for accounting information quality) leads to the cost of financing through debts and this decrease is more pronounced for innate accruals quality than for discretionary accruals quality. Furthermore, the findings suggest that during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of accruals quality and its innate and discretionary components on the cost of debt diminished. The results of the robustness tests using decile-ranked values of accruals quality support the main findings.IntroductionThe global pandemic of COVID-19 and the economic recession related to it brought many challenges to companies in most countries (Barai & Dhar, 2021). Due to the widespread effects of this disease and the various and costly measures taken by countries to control this pandemic, during the outbreak of COVID-19, the economic activities of companies faced a serious challenge (Aljughaiman et al., 2023). COVID-19 had a significant negative impact on the employment level of the workforce, reduced economic activity, and created high levels of uncertainty in many financial markets (Zhang et al., 2020). These conditions have most likely hurt the accounting information quality (Pham et al., 2023; Chen et al., 2023) and due to the inverse relationship between the accounting information quality and the cost of debt, it has led to an increase in the cost of debt. However, most of the empirical evidence in this regard is related to developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and the evidence on emerging markets (such as the Iranian capital market) is limited in this regard. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the accruals quality and the cost of debt and to compare the extent of this relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic and other years.Literature ReviewIn accounting, accruals refer to a part of earnings that does not carry cash flow and is a product of the accrual accounting system. Therefore, accruals represent the difference between earnings and cash flows (Nallareddy et al., 2020). Since accruals are affected by managerial discretion, the accruals quality can be used to evaluate the accounting information quality and predict future cash flows (Le et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the global economy (Zhu & Song, 2021), involved many businesses in financial difficulties (Albitar et al., 2020) and intensified their dependence on resources provided by creditors and investors (Shen et al., 2020). Most likely, these conditions have affected the accounting information quality (Pham et al., 2023). During the COVID-19 pandemic, most companies have had enough motivation for earnings management (Lassoued & Khanchel, 2021). However, earnings management causes the financial information reported by companies to be inconsistent with their actual situation, and this means reducing the accounting information quality (Tariverdi et al., 2012). According to these materials, the research hypotheses are presented as follows:H1: An increase in the quality of accruals causes a decrease in the cost of debt.H2: In the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the intensity of the effect of accruals quality on the cost of debt has decreased.MethodologyThis research is practical, analytical, quasi-experimental, correlational in terms of research purpose, and retrospective and post-event in terms of the time dimension of the data. To collect financial and accounting data, Rahvard Novin database and reports published on Codal website were used, and Stata software was used to analyze the data. To fit the models, the generalized least squares approach was used.ResultsThe results show that compared to other years, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the accruals quality (the cost of debt) has decreased (increased) by 27% (35%). Also, the results indicate that an increase in accruals quality decreases the cost of debt. Furthermore, our results show that compared to other years, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the intensity of the effect of the accruals quality on the cost of debt has decreased.DiscussionThe research findings show that an increase in accruals quality significantly decreases the cost of financing. So, in order to reduce financing costs from debts, managers are advised to be diligent in improving the companies' accounting information quality. Finally, our results show that the cost of debt has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the decline in accruals quality and its components.ConclusionOur results show that with the increase in the quality of accruals, the cost of financing through debts has a significant decrease, and this decrease is more for the innate components of accruals quality than for its discretionary part. In addition, the findings indicate that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the intensity of the effect of the accruals quality and its innate and discretionary components on the cost of debt has decreased. The results of supplementary tests confirm the research main findings.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh cost of debt, capital intensity dan sales growth terhadap tax avoidance. Penelitan ini menggunakan pendekatan kuantitif asosiatif. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah perusahaan sektor Consumer Non Cyclicals yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia Tahun 2017-2021. Teknik penentuan sampel yang digunakan adalah purposive sampling. Jumlah sampel yang diperoleh sebanyak 34 perusahaan Consumer Non Cyclicals di BEI tahun 2017-2021. Pengujian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah teknik analisis regresi berganda, yaitu uji statistik deskriptif, analisis model regresi data panel, uji pemilihan model, uji regresi linear berganda, dan uji hipotesis dengan software eviews versi 9. Berdasarkan uji simultan diketahui bahwa cost of debt, capital intensity dan sales growth berpengaruh pada tax avoidance. Secara parsial menunjukan bahwa cost of debt, capital intensity dan sales growth berpengaruh pada tax avoidance. Kata kunci: Tax Avoidance; Cost of Debt; Capital Intensity and Sales Growth

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Prior research suggests that last-in-first-out (LIFO) inventory policy produces higher accruals quality than first-in-first-out (FIFO), leading to lower information risk for LIFO firms. Equity investors, in turn, price lower information risk by giving a premium to LIFO firms. Prior research also suggests that LIFO inventory policy, by understating aggregate earnings and net assets, creates hidden reserves that can be released to produce higher future earnings. Prior research, however, is silent on how debtholders price inventory policy choice. Focusing on private debtholders, we explore three research questions: (a) Do private debtholders price LIFO differently from FIFO? (b) If so, how does downside risk affect the pricing of LIFO? and (c) What is the underlying reason for the pricing effect, accounting quality, or hidden reserves? First, we find that LIFO is associated with a lower loan spread than FIFO. Not surprisingly, the pricing effect of LIFO is larger in high-inflation years than in other years. Second, we find that the pricing effect of LIFO is much larger for unrated firms than for rated firms. Third, we find that the negative association between LIFO and loan spread is driven primarily by hidden LIFO reserves rather than accounting quality. Overall, our evidence shows that inventory policy choice affects private debtholders' pricing decisions, and this effect is primarily due to future earnings implications of hidden LIFO reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a manually collected data set of Chinese publicly traded firms from 2010 to 2017, this study examines how public–private partnerships (PPP) affect the cost of debt and financial reporting. We argue that a firm gains political capital through a PPP and thus may access debt markets at a lower cost. Consistent with our expectation, we find that participants of PPP enjoy significantly lower bank loan interest rates than other firms. This is more pronounced for nonstate‐owned enterprises, for firms without politically connected CEOs, and for loans from state‐owned banks. However, these participants reduce their accounting conservatism, suggesting a substitution between financial reporting and political connections. Also, participating in PPP does not improve firms' financial performance. Thus, the lower interest rates are not justified by economic fundamentals or financial reporting quality. Overall, our study suggests that PPP distort state‐owned banks' lending decisions and lower accounting conservatism, highlighting the potential cost of PPP to society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]