Has Financial Reporting Become More Conservative? An Update

Abstract

Givoly and Hayn (2000) (GH) examine time series properties of earnings, cash flows, and accruals over a 48-year period from 1950 to 1998 and find that financial reporting has become more conservative. We replicate GH hold even in the recent years. We draw evidence from Compustat and CRSP merged firms. We find that 'sign and magnitude of accruals' and 'incremental response to bad news measure' suggest increased conservatism in the second sub-period (i.E 2001-2005). other measures of conservatism do not provide any clear and strong indication for the direction of conservatism.