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Following Basu (1997) and Ball et al. (2000), we give particular attention to timely
recognition of economic losses. There are several reasons for this asymmetry. First,
managers generally possess private information about economic gains and losses
(changes in expected future cash flows) that is unobservable to auditors. Their
incentive to disclose gain and loss information is not symmetric, so auditors generally
give greater credence to information about losses, and financial reporting tends to
specialize in timely loss recognition. Second, managers can book economic gains and
losses by selling assets and, without accounting recognition of unrealized gains and
losses, they would have an asymmetric incentive to exercise the option to realize gains,
not losses. Timely recognition of unrealized losses reduces that asymmetry. Third,
timely loss recognition decreases the likelihood of managers making ex ante negative-
NPV decisions, such as ‘‘trophy’’ investments or acquisitions, whose cash flow
consequences extend beyond their tenure. Fourth, pricing of debt at its issuance is
unlikely to be influenced substantially by timely incorporation of known gains and
losses, but the post-issuance enforcement of coverage and leverage covenants is.
Timely loss recognition transfers decision rights from loss-making managers to lenders
more quickly, by earlier triggering of covenant violations based on financial-statement
ratios. Economic gains do not trigger covenant violations, so debt contracts generate
no demand for timely gain recognition. Thus, timely loss recognition increases the
economic efficiency of firms’ contracting with both debt holders and management. We
hypothesize that loss recognition is less timely in East Asian countries generally, where
debt and managerial contracting is conducted more extensively through family or
other ‘‘insider’’ networks, and due to political effects on financial reporting.