Abstract
The paper uses Ohlson (Contemp Account Res 11:661–687, 1995) and compares the relative predictability of the proposed simultaneous model for contemporaneous stock price with a traditional single equation model used by the previous studies. The paper also explores how residual income and value-relevant information affect firms’ equity price. The main results of the paper suggest that the predictive ability and estimation efficiency of the simultaneous models in explaining contemporaneous stock prices are better than those of the traditional single models. Moreover, investors will use the value-relevant information beyond accounting earnings, namely analysts’ earnings forecasts, bankruptcy cost and agency cost, in equity valuation to make decision. Note particularly, the higher the bankruptcy or agency cost is, the more important the role it plays in equity valuation and, on average, the higher the accuracy of price prediction is.
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Notes
Ohlson model shows the relevance of residual income as a variable that affects the value of a firm. The term residual income is defined by accounting earnings minus a charge for the use of capital. Myers (1999) indicates that residual income is similar to abnormal earnings. According to the concept of residual income, Stern Stewart & Co. has proposed a variation of residual income, Economic Value Added (EVA®), which has attracted considerable attention by many corporations for purposes of internal performance evaluation and external investment decision.
Francis et al. (2000) suggest that residual income valuation model is better than discounting short-term forecasts by using cash flow and dividend in predicting and explaining stock price. Lee (2006) indicates that residual income model provides a better valuation than dividend discount model. Barth (2000) and Lo and Lys (2000) show that residual income valuation model enables investors to estimate firm value on the basis of observable accounting numbers, and to identify the factors of stock mis-pricing.
Clean surplus accounting requires that all gains and losses affecting book value are included in earnings. The existing GAAP is not completely consistent with clean surplus relation; for instance, the adjustment of foreign currency translation, loss or gain of available for sale investment, and prior period adjustment of the change in accounting policy. Those items are not presented in the current income statement, rather represent in current stockholder’s equity.
Myers (1999) indicates that the empirical models of Dechow et al. (1999) contain internal inconsistency due to underspecified information dynamics in LIM; their work hence cannot provide a closed-form price function. Specifically, the internal inconsistency problem in Dechow et al. is that their LIM contains an intercept term while the implied valuation function does not.
We estimate beta of each firm by monthly returns of previous 5 years, for example, the beta of firm i in 1987 is estimated by monthly returns from December 1982 to November 1987. In addition, if the missing monthly returns of firm i exceed 20 observations, this paper employ 12% (the long-run average realized return in the US) to proxy for cost of equity capital.
We adopt two measures of earnings to estimate residual income. They induce two corresponding values of other earnings information variables.
The researchers can use methods of ordinary least squares, weighted least squares, (weighted) two-stage least squares (2SLS), three-stage least squares (3SLS), etc to estimate the parameters of systems of equations. Beaver et al. (1997) suggest that a major challenge of using either limited information method (i.e., 2SLS) or full information method (i.e., 3SLS) is the identification of a set of instrumental variables. Misspecification of the set of instruments reduces the potential benefits of the simultaneous equations approach, and in the limit produces poorer estimates than OLS. To satisfy the requirements of LIM of Ohlson (1995), we hence use OLS and WLS to proceed the analysis. Our empirical results show that although the results of OLS method are similar to those of WLS method, the significance of the variables and adjusted R-squared of regression model of OLS method are poor than those in WLS method. In what follows, we only show the results of WLS for ease of exposition.
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We would especially like to thank Cheng F. Lee (the editor) and an anonymous referee for many helpful comments and suggestions that improved the paper.
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Appendix 1
Appendix 1
1.1 Dynamic LIM under traditional residual income model
We first assume that the simultaneous model of traditional residual income model is
and let \(X_{t+1} =W_0^\ast +A_1^\ast X_t +\Uptheta_{t+1}^\ast,\) where \(W_0^\ast =A_0^{-1} W_0, A_1^\ast =A_0^{-1} A_1,\ \hbox{and}\ \Uptheta_{t+1}^\ast =A_0^{-1} \Uptheta_{t+1}.\) On the other hand, because
we have
where \(C=\left[ {\frac{I}{1+r}+\frac{I+A_1^\ast} {\left( {1+r} \right)^{2}}+\frac{I+A_1^\ast +\left( {A_1^\ast} \right)^{2}}{\left( {1+r} \right)^{3}}+\cdots \cdot \cdot} \right],\) \(B =\left[ {\frac{A_1^\ast} {\left( {1+r} \right)}+\frac{\left( {A_1^\ast} \right)^{2}}{\left( {1+r} \right)^{2}}+\cdots \cdot \cdot} \right].\) From (A2),
we obtain
On the other hand, the constant term C is
and
Therefore, \(C=[A_0 (1+r)-A_1 ]^{-1}\left(\frac{1+r}{r}\right)A_0 =\frac{1+r}{r}\left[ {A_0 \left( {1+r} \right)-A_1} \right]^{-1}A_0.\) From (A1), \(X_{t+1} =\left[ {{\begin{array}{l} {\omega_{10}} \\ {\omega_{20}} \\ \end{array}}} \right]+\left[ {{\begin{array}{ll} {\omega_{11}} & {\omega_{12}} \\ 0& {\omega_{22}} \\ \end{array}}} \right]X_t +\Uptheta_{t+1},\) and thus the constant term is
Hence, the first element is \(\frac{(1+r)\left[ {\omega_{10} \left({1+r-\omega_{22}} \right)+\omega_{12} \omega_{20}} \right]}{r\left({1+r-\omega_{11}} \right)\left( {1+r-\omega_{22}} \right)}.\) Moreover, from (A2),
Thus, the first row is \(\frac{\omega_{11}} {1+r-\omega_{11}} x_t +\frac{\left( {1+r} \right)\omega_{12}} {\left( {1+r-\omega_{11}} \right)\left( {1+r-\omega_{22}} \right)}\upsilon_t.\)
This general approach applies to all the linear information models considered in the paper.
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Tsay, R.S., Lin, YM. & Wang, HW. Residual income, value-relevant information and equity valuation: a simultaneous equations approach. Rev Quant Finan Acc 31, 331–358 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-007-0081-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-007-0081-4