Signaling Firm Performance Through Financial Statement Presentation: An Analysis Using Special Items*
研究了特殊项目在利润表中单独列示还是仅在附注中披露，是否反映公司真实经济业绩或机会主义行为，发现单独列示的特殊项目更短暂，符合业绩信号，但在“大洗澡”动机下存在有限的机会主义证据。
This paper investigates whether presentation of special items within the financial statements reflects the firm's underlying economic performance or opportunism. We examine the presentation of recognized special items either as a separate line item on the income statement or aggregated within another line item with disclosure only in the footnotes. Our study is motivated by standard-setting interest in performance reporting and financial statement presentation, as well as prior research investigating managers' presentation choices in other contexts. Using different constructs of persistence to capture the economics of reported special items, we find evidence consistent across a range of specifications that special items highlighted on the income statement are more transitory than those revealed only in the footnotes. For most special items, these results are consistent with this presentation decision reflecting underlying firm performance. For a subset observations -namely, those likely to reflect "big bath" reporting incentives -we provide limited evidence suggestive of opportunism in this presentation decision.