Messod D. Beneish

Indiana University Bloomington | IUB · Department of Accounting

We develop a profile of overvalued equity, and show that firms meeting this profile experience abnormal stock returns net of transaction costs of −22% to −25% over the 12 months following portfolio formation. We show our model is distinct from predictors proposed in prior work, and our results robust to alternative measurements of expected returns....

This study examines the incremental predictive power of aggregate measures of financial misreporting for recession and real gross domestic product (GDP) growth. We draw on prior research suggesting that misreporting has real economic effects because it represents misinformation on which firms base their investment, hiring, and production decisions....

The increasingly service-based U.S. economy relies on innovation. While there is considerable research on the importance of certain innovative activities, such as patents, less attention has been paid to unpatented innovation, about which there is naturally less publicly available information. Our study exploits disclosure on the fair value of acqu...

We compare seven fraud prediction models with a cost-based measure that nets the benefits of correctly anticipating instances of fraud against the costs borne by incorrectly flagging non-fraud firms. We find that even the best models trade off false to true positives at rates exceeding 100:1. Indeed, the high number of false positives makes all sev...

We propose a framework that advances our understanding of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) retention decisions in misreporting firms. Consistent with economic intuition, outside directors are more likely to fire (retain) CEOs when retention (replacement) costs are high relative to replacement (retention) costs. When the decision is ambiguous because n...

We examine the economic determinants of short-sale supply, and its consequences for future stock returns. Lendable supply increases with expected borrowing costs and decreases with financial statement constructs that indicate overvaluation. Although rising loan fees help ease supply constraints, we find shares are still least available when they ar...

This study investigates whether mandatory IFRS adoption is associated with increased foreign portfolio investment into the adopting country’s debt and equity markets. Using macroeconomic data and a pre–post design centered in 2005, we find that IFRS adoption has a significantly greater effect on foreign debt than on foreign equity investment flows....

An accounting-based earnings manipulation detection model has strong out-of-sample power to predict cross-sectional returns. Companies with a higher probability of manipulation (M-score) earn lower returns on every decile portfolio sorted by size, book-to-market, momentum, accruals, and short interest. The predictive power of M-score stems from its...

We provide evidence that outside directors’ trading and ratification decisions are incrementally useful in assessing their independence. Because crises test the independence of boards, we first investigate the CEO replacement decision in firms caught intentionally misreporting earnings. We predict and find that outside directors’ selling that emula...

We examine the economic determinants of short-sale supply, and its consequences for future stock returns. Lendable supply increases with expected borrowing costs and decreases with financial statement constructs that indicate overvaluation. Although rising loan fees help ease supply, we find shares are still least available when they are most attra...

While it is generally maintained that earnings management can occur to inform as well as to mislead, evidence that earnings management informs has been scarce, and evidence that credibility increases with signal costliness inexistent. We provide evidence that firms use discretion over financial reporting and real activities to report higher earning...

This study investigates whether a shock to financial reporting has a differential impact on debt and equity markets. Using macroeconomic data and a pre-post design centered in 2005, we find that IFRS adoption has a significantly greater effect on foreign debt than on foreign equity investment flows. This result is consistent with the notion that de...

An accounting-based model has strong out-of-sample power not only to detect fraud, but also to predict cross-sectional returns. Firms with a higher probability of manipulation (MSCORE) earn lower returns in every decile portfolio sorted by: Size, Book-to-Market, Momentum, Accruals, and Short-Interest. We show that the predictive power of MSCORE is...

We use an observable action (non-executive directors’ insider trading) and an observable outcome (the market assessment of a board-ratified merger) to infer collusion between a firm’s executive and non-executive directors. We show that CEOs are more likely to be retained when both directors and CEOs sell abnormal amounts of equity before the delinq...

We examine why CEOs remain in power in over half of the firms that intentionally misreport earnings. We find that CEOs are more likely to remain in power when (i) the CEO and (conventionally independent) directors appear to collude: both benefit from the misstated accounting by selling their equity contingent wealth before discovery and by ratifyin...

An earnings manipulation detection model based on forensic accounting principles (Beneish 1999) has substantial out-of-sample ability to predict cross-sectional returns. We show that the model correctly identified, ahead of time, 12 of the 17 highest profile fraud cases in the period 1998-2002. Moreover, the probability of manipulation estimated fr...

This paper shows that the threat of litigation impacts managers’ accounting and stock-trading decisions in periods preceding technical default. We analyze managers’ pre-default accrual strategies separately and jointly with their pre-default insider trading activity in a sample of 462 firms that experience technical default in the period 1983-1997....

We develop a profile of overvalued equity, and show that firms meeting this profile experience abnormal stock returns net of transaction costs of -22 to -25 percent over the twelve months following portfolio formation. We show our model is distinct from predictors proposed in prior work, and our results robust to alternative measurements of expecte...

This paper provides a perspective on the effect of IFRS adoption on the tendency of investors to under-invest in foreign equities. We consider explanations for the equity home bias described in prior research and discuss research relevant to the informational consequences of global adoption of IFRS. Specifically, we evaluate whether IFRS adoption r...

While it is well established that diversifying acquisitions by large, cash-rich firms destroy shareholder wealth, we document positive abnormal returns to such acquisitions in the tobacco industry. We show that these abnormal returns are associated with proxies for lower expected expropriation costs. Specifically, we show that wealth creation incre...

Using a sample of 336 firms making reports required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we examine the effect of mandated internal control weaknesses disclosures on information uncertainty for disclosing firms and for size-and performance-matched non-disclosing firms. We find a significantly negative (weakly positive) price response for disclosing (non-disc...

This paper provides a perspective on the effect of IFRS adoption on the tendency of investors to under-invest in foreign equities. We consider explanations for the home equity bias described in prior research and discuss research relevant to the informational consequences of global adoption of IFRS. Specifically, we evaluate whether IFRS adoption r...

We analyze a sample of 330 firms making unaudited disclosures required by Section 302 and 383 firms making audited disclosures required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We find that Section 302 disclosures are associated with negative announcement abnormal returns of -1.8 percent, and that firms experience an abnormal increase in equity co...

Although financial reporting fraud generates considerable losses, we find that investors do not fully exploit publicly available information relevant for detecting fraud. We show that firms with a high probability of overstated earnings have lower future earnings, less persistent income-increasing accruals, and lower future returns. The trading str...

The paper provides evidence that the relation between accruals and future returns is not symmetric. We find that firms with low accruals generate insignificant abnormal returns in asset pricing regressions that control for either earnings quality or operating volatility. In contrast, we find that accrual hedge returns are driven by firms with large...

The paper provides evidence that the threat of litigation influences managers' accounting and insider trading choices in firms experiencing deteriorating financial performance. We analyze the two-year period preceding technical default for 462 firms during 1983-1997. Our sample firms have deteriorating performance during this period (abnormal retur...

The paper examines the relation between the probability of manipulation, accruals, and future returns. We show that firms that have a high likelihood of earnings manipulation (as measured by the Beneish (1999)'s M-Score) experience lower future earnings, but that investors expect these firms to have higher future earnings. Indeed, we find that inve...

We assess the conditions under which auditor resignations reduce uncertainty about the quality of financial reporting of former and continuing clients of the resigning auditor. Our analysis is based on a sample of 109 auditor resignations in the period 1994–1998. Approximately one-quarter of these resignation announcements are accompanied by disclo...

This paper evaluates two hypotheses about the relation between insider selling and earnings management in periods preceding poor corporate performance. Consistent with our litigation avoidance hypothesis, we provide evidence that managers manage earnings upwards after they have engaged in abnormally high levels of insider selling. In contrast, we f...

This paper investigates whether insider trading is informative about earnings quality and the valuation implications of accruals. We show that (1) the one-year-ahead persistence of income-increasing accruals is significantly lower when accompanied by abnormal insider selling and greater when accompanied by abnormal insider buying; (2) the accrual m...

This study examines the usefulness of contextual fundamental analysis for the prediction of extreme stock returns. Specifically, we use a two-stage approach to predict firms that are about to experience an extreme (up or down) price movement in the next quarter. In the first stage, we define the context for analysis by identifying extreme performer...

The paper provides evidence that the signal contained in insiders' trading behavior is useful in making refined assessments of earnings quality, and informative about the valuation implications of accruals. We find that income-increasing accruals and unexpected accruals have lower (higher) persistence when managers engage in abnormal selling (buyin...

We use a sample of firms that experience technical default to investigate whether an observable managerial action, managers? trading, is useful in (1) determining the existence of pre-default earnings management, and (2) in assessing whether specific contract modifications in renegotiated debt agreements are costly. We find income-increasing accrua...

The paper investigates how auditor resignations affect capital market participants' perception of firms from which the auditors resign ("former clients") and of firms that continue as clients of the resigning auditor ("continuing clients"). We find that resignation announcements result in significant negative abnormal returns for former clients and...

The paper provides a perspective on earnings management. I begin by addressing the following questions: What is earnings management? How pervasive is it? How is it measured? Then, I discuss what we, as academics, know about incentives to increase and to decrease earnings. The research presented relates to earnings management incentives stemming fro...

Standard & Poor's has become increasingly aggressive in deleting stocks from the S&P 500 index. Where once it made replacements in the index, only when a particular stock had to be removed due to merger or acquisition, corporate restructuring, and bankruptcy filing, S&P now voluntarily removes a company for a variety of reasons, which may include l...

The paper provides a perspective on earnings management. I begin by addressing the following questions: What is earnings management? How pervasive is it? How is it measured? Then, I discuss what we, as academics, know about incentives to increase and to decrease earnings. The research presented relates to earnings management incentives stemming fro...

We compare First Call analyst forecasts of earnings to unofficial forecasts commonly referred to as whispers. Our analysis indicates that whispers are more accurate proxies for market expectations of earnings than are First Call forecasts, consistent with the claim in the professional press that whispers are increasingly becoming the true market ex...

This paper investigates the incentives and the penalties related to earnings overstatements primarily in firms that are subject to accounting enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I find (1) that managers in treatment firms are more likely to sell their holdings and exercise stock appreciation rights in the period whe...

Abstract The Detection of Earnings Manipulation The paper profiles a sample of earnings manipulators, identifies their distinguishing characteristics,and estimates a model for detecting manipulation. The model’s variables are designed to capture either the effects of manipulation or preconditionsthat may prompt firms to engage in such activity. The...

There is a long history of research which examines the relation between unexpected earnings and unexpected returns on common stock. Early literature used simple linear regression models to describe this relation. Recently, a number of authors have proposed nonlinear models. These authors find that the earnings-returns relation is approximately line...

This paper contrasts technical default, debt service default and bankruptcy, and establishes that the valuation effects of their announcements are significant and increasingly severe. We show the events are interrelated. Specifically, we show that technical default is a timely warning of further distress insofar as adverse stock price effects of de...

In October 1989, Standard and Poor's began its practice of pre-announcing changes in the S&P 500 index composition The new announcement practice created the "S&P game" - a trading strategy in which so-called "risk-arbitrageurs" buy the shares of newly added index stocks on the day following the announcement, and sell on the day the index change bec...

My paper presents a model to detect earnings management among firms experiencing extreme financial performance, and compares the model's performance to that of discretionary accrual models. I found that the model provides timely assessments of the likelihood of manipulation, and that model-based trading strategies earn significant abnormal returns....

This study analyzes the effects of changes in S&P 500 index composition from January 1986 through June 1994, a period during which Standard and Poor's began its practice of preannouncing changes five days beforehand. The new announcement practice has given rise to the 'S&P game' and has altered the way stock prices react. The authors find that pric...

We examine the stock market effect of changes in the composition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Unlike S&P 500 listing studies, we find that the price and the trading volume of newly listed DJIA firms are unaffected. We attribute this result to a lack of index fund rebalancing, since index trading is limited for most of our sample peri...

Costs of default underpin the debt covenant hypothesis-- which predicts that managers have incentives to avoid defaulting on notes and loans--yet prior research yields only limited confirmation of their existence. We provide evidence on the nature and magnitude of default costs, and show that announcements of technical default are associated with s...

The paper uses stock market data to assess the profit elasticity of nonprice competition and to compare the effects of oil shocks across regulatory regimes in the airline industry. We use the natural experiment provided by the oil shocks of the 1970s to provide market-based estimates of the effect of capacity competition on profits. The 1973 OPEC o...

This paper examines the role of corporate codes of conduct in agency settings, and tests an explicit hypothesis about managers' choice of code content. The empirical analysis of codes indicates that their content varies to reflect interests logically related to major industry groups. The evidence indicates that rational managers' choice of code con...

Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips stock price has been predicted using the difference between core and headline CPI in the United States. Linear trends in the CPI difference allow accurate prediction of the prices at a five to ten-year horizon.

This article investigates alternative explanations for the significant stock-price reaction to analysts' information reported in the "Heard on the Street" column of the Wall Street Journal. The observed market reaction persists after eliminating firms with confounding releases and firms for which analysts' reports are issued immediately prior to pu...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1987. Bibliography: p. 91-93. Microfilm.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, December 1987. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-93).