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Economic Policy Uncertainty, Monetary Policy Uncertainty, and Bank Earnings Opacity

Authors: Justin Y. Jin; Kiridaran Kanagaretnam; Yi Liu; Gerald J. Lobo;

Economic Policy Uncertainty, Monetary Policy Uncertainty, and Bank Earnings Opacity

Abstract

Using a sample of U.S. banks and indices for economic policy uncertainty and monetary policy uncertainty developed by Baker et al. (2016), we investigate whether these two sources of policy uncertainty affect bank earnings opacity. When economic and monetary policies are relatively uncertain, it is easier for bank managers to distort financial information, as unpredictable policy changes make assessing the existence and impact of hidden “adverse news” more difficult for external stakeholders such as investors and creditors. Policy uncertainty also increases the fluctuation in banks’ earnings and cash flows, thus providing additional incentives and opportunities for bank managers to engage in earnings management. Our results show that uncertainty in economic policy and monetary policy are positively related to earnings opacity, proxied by the magnitude of discretionary loan loss provisions and the likelihood of just meeting or beating the prior year’s earnings, and negatively related to the level of accounting conservatism (i.e., the timeliness of recognition of bad news relative to good news). Collectively, our results suggest that economic policy uncertainty and monetary policy uncertainty lead to greater earnings opacity. We also find that the impact of policy uncertainty on financial reporting distortion is less pronounced for stronger banks (i.e., banks with high capital ratios).

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Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
5
Top 10%
Average
Average
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