Accounting Changes and Debt Contracting
Accounting Changes and Debt Contracting

Author: Masako N. Darrough

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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This paper examines whether firms benefit, in debt contracting, from committing to incorporate future GAAP changes (referred to as rolling GAAP) or not to incorporate any future changes (referred to as frozen GAAP). We show that informative future accounting changes do not necessarily improve the efficiency in debt contracts. We develop a parsimonious model to examine the interplay between the firm's investment decision made ex ante and the accounting information revealed ex post the rule change. These accounting changes enable the creditor to observe an accounting signal about the project state. Firms rationally anticipate such a signal and tailor investment decisions accordingly. If asset substitution is sufficiently severe, accounting changes unambiguously reduce the firm's expected payoff and the efficiency of debt contracting, even though they might reduce information asymmetry between the lender and the borrower. Under such a scenario, a firm would prefer not to incorporate future accounting changes.

Accounting Changes, Asset Substitution, and Debt Contracting
Accounting Changes, Asset Substitution, and Debt Contracting

Author: Masako N. Darrough

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13:

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This paper examines whether firms benefit, in debt contracting, from committing to incorporate future GAAP changes (referred to as rolling GAAP) or not to incorporate any future changes (referred to as frozen GAAP). We show that informative future accounting changes do not necessarily improve efficiency of debt contracts. We develop a parsimonious model to examine the interplay between a firm's investment decisions made ex ante and the accounting information revealed ex post the rule change. A firm borrows fund and makes investment decisions (project selection and effort choice) before a regulator may change accounting rules, which enable the creditor to observe an accounting signal about the project state. The firm rationally anticipates such a signal and tailors investment decisions accordingly. For example, if the firm knows that a bad project state is likely to be revealed, it will select a more risky technology and exacerbate asset substitution. In such a case, accounting changes might reduce the overall efficiency of debt contracting by distorting the firm's ex ante investment decisions. If asset substitution is sufficiently severe, accounting changes unambiguously reduce the firm's expected payoff and the efficiency of debt contracting, even though they might reduce information asymmetry between the lender and the borrower. Under such a scenario, a firm would prefer not to incorporate future accounting changes.

The Effects of Debt Contracting on Voluntary Accounting Method Changes
The Effects of Debt Contracting on Voluntary Accounting Method Changes

Author: Anne Beatty

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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This study examines whether the provisions of a firm's bank debt contracts affect its accounting choices. Starting with a sample of firms who have bank debt and who also voluntarily changed accounting methods, we investigate whether the likelihood that the change increased (rather than decreased) the borrowers income depends on (1) whether the changes in accounting methods affect the bank debt contract calculations, (2) the expected costs of violating the bank debt covenants, (3) whether performance pricing provisions affect the interest rate on the loan, and (4) whether the bank debt contract contains accounting-based dividend restrictions. After controlling for other motives for changing accounting methods, we find that borrowers whose bank debt contracts allow accounting method changes to affect contact calculations are more likely to make income-increasing rather than income-decreasing changes. This increase in likelihood of an income-increasing change is attenuated when expected costs of technical violation are lower because there is a single lender, and occurs for borrowers whose debt contacts have performance pricing and dividend restrictions. These results suggest that incentives to lower interest rates through performance pricing or to retain dividend payment flexibility influence borrowers' accounting method choices, thereby addressing the fundamental questions posed by Fields et al. (2001) of whether, under what circumstances, and how accounting choice matters.

The Importance of Accounting Changes in Debt Contracts
The Importance of Accounting Changes in Debt Contracts

Author: Anne Beatty

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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In this paper we examine how the exclusion of voluntary and mandatory accounting changes from the calculation of covenant compliance affects the interest rate charged on the loan. After controlling for self-selection bias and other factors known to affect loan spreads, we find that the rate charged is 84 basis points lower when voluntary accounting changes are excluded and 71 basis points lower when mandatory accounting changes are excluded. Our results suggest that borrowers are willing to pay substantially higher interest rates to retain accounting flexibility that may help them avoid covenant violations and to avoid duplicate record keeping costs.

Three Essays in Accounting Regulation and Debt Contract Characteristics
Three Essays in Accounting Regulation and Debt Contract Characteristics

Author: Bryan S. Graden

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation is comprised of three essays relating to accounting regulation and debt contracting. The first essay is designed to draw inferences about lenders' demand for lease accounting rules in light of proposed lease accounting standard changes. I study changes in lease-related debt covenants surrounding the adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 13: Accounting for Leases in 1976. I find that lenders are significantly less likely to inhibit leasing activity via lease restrictions after SFAS 13 adoption and that lenders are significantly more likely to modify debt covenants to capitalize operating leases across time in the post-SFAS 13-adoption period. The findings suggest that lenders adapt debt covenant definitions to changes in accounting standards. Further, the findings indicate that lenders adapt debt covenant definitions to changes in borrowers' financial reporting incentives. The second essay investigates whether lenders capitalize operating leases uniformly when defining debt covenants. I argue that bankruptcy treatment of leases affects lenders' incentives to incorporate operating leases into debt covenants leading to differential treatment of operating leases as opposed to a "one-size-fits-all" contracting treatment of operating leases. Using a hand-collected sample of lending agreements from firms that use operating leases extensively, I find a positive association between the probability of lenders capitalizing operating leases into debt covenants and the duration of borrowers' lease contracts. The results indicate that lenders discriminate among operating leases when designing debt covenants and suggest that operating leases vary in their effect on credit risk. The third essay examines the relation between contract-specified accounting standards and private lender country of domicile. Prior studies provide evidence suggesting that equity investors' information gathering and processing costs are related to differences in reported accounting standards. While lenders have access to private information about prospective borrowers, I document that US lenders are more likely to contract on US accounting standards that match their home country. These findings generalize to Canadian, UK, and IFRS-country lenders and suggest that lenders exhibit a preference for home-country GAAP. In additional tests, I examine whether the degree of difference between borrower- and lender-country accounting standards affects the likelihood that a debt contract from a US lender specifies US GAAP and whether contracting on similar GAAP affects other loan terms. I find no significant effect on the probability of contracting on US GAAP when accounting differences are larger. Similarly, I find no significant evidence that lenders modify loan spread, maturity, and financial covenant use for loans from US lenders that specify US accounting standards.

Financial Statement Quality and Debt Contracting
Financial Statement Quality and Debt Contracting

Author: Dain C. Donelson

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13:

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We survey commercial bank lenders to better understand how they evaluate and react to variation in financial statement quality and how they view recent changes in accounting standards. A unique aspect of this study is that our respondents focus on medium-size loans to private companies. In fact, more than 90 percent of the survey respondents primarily make credit decisions on loans between $250 thousand and $50 million. This is in contrast to prior archival research, which focuses primarily on very large loans to public firms or very small loans to private firms. We find that lenders in our sample distinguish among financial statements in terms of quality, including conservatism, primarily on the basis of accrual patterns and restatements. While this general result holds throughout our sample, financial statement quality is substantially more important for lenders making larger loans (over $10 million) as compared to very small loans (under $1 million). In addition, bank lenders are much more likely to respond to low quality reporting with collateral and guarantee requirements than with an increase in the interest rate charged. This finding is consistent for lenders making both larger and smaller loans. Finally, despite concerns in the academic literature, bank lenders in our sample actually hold a neutral-to-positive view of recent changes in accounting standards. In addition, most do not support current efforts to exempt private companies from some accounting standards.

Contracting on GAAP Changes
Contracting on GAAP Changes

Author: Hans Bonde Christensen

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 41

ISBN-13:

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We explore revealed preferences for the contractual treatment of changes to GAAP in a large sample of private credit agreements issued by publicly held U.S. firms. We document a significant time-trend toward excluding GAAP changes from the determination of covenant compliance over the period from 1994 to 2012. This trend is positively associated with proxies for standard setters' shift in focus toward relevance and international accounting harmonization. At the firm level, borrowers facing higher uncertainty are more likely to write contracts that include GAAP changes, but these firms also show a more pronounced time-trend toward excluding GAAP changes. While this evidence is broadly consistent with an efficiency role for GAAP changes in debt contracting, it is also consistent with a shift in standard setters' focus offering a partial explanation of why fewer contracts rely on GAAP changes in 2012 than in 1994.