IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/108540.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From accounting to economics: the role of aggregate special items in gauging the state of the economy

Author

Listed:
  • Abdalla, Ahmed
  • Carabias, Jose M.

Abstract

We propose and find that aggregate special items conveys more information about future real GDP growth than aggregate earnings before special items because the former contains advance news about future economic outcomes. A two-stage rational expectations test reveals that professional forecasters fully understand the information content of aggregate earnings before special items, but underestimate that of aggregate special items when revising their GDP forecasts. Using vector autoregressions, we show that aggregate earnings before special items has predictive ability for GDP because, as suggested by previous literature, it acts as a proxy for corporate profits included in national income. In contrast, aggregate special items captures changes in the behavior of economic agents on a timely basis, which, in turn, have real effects on firms' investment and hiring, as well as consumers' wealth and spending. Consistent with news-driven business cycles, we find that aggregate special items produces synchronized movements across macroeconomic aggregates.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdalla, Ahmed & Carabias, Jose M., 2022. "From accounting to economics: the role of aggregate special items in gauging the state of the economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108540, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:108540
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/108540/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ali, A & Zarowin, P, 1992. "The Role Of Earnings Levels In Annual Earnings Returns Studies," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 286-296.
    2. Easton, Pd & Harris, Ts, 1991. "Earnings As An Explanatory Variable For Returns," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 19-36.
    3. Gallo, Lindsey A. & Hann, Rebecca N. & Li, Congcong, 2016. "Aggregate earnings surprises, monetary policy, and stock returns," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 103-120.
    4. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2014. "News-Driven Business Cycles: Insights and Challenges," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(4), pages 993-1074, December.
    5. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1983. "A Rational Expectations Approach to Macroeconometrics: Testing Policy Ineffectiveness and Efficient-Markets Models," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number mish83-1.
    6. Barsky, Robert B. & Sims, Eric R., 2011. "News shocks and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 273-289.
    7. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2006. "Stock Prices, News, and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1293-1307, September.
    8. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    9. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    10. Elliott, JA & Hanna, JD, 1996. "Repeated accounting write-offs and the information content of earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34, pages 135-155.
    11. Anthony Shorrocks, 2013. "Decomposition procedures for distributional analysis: a unified framework based on the Shapley value," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(1), pages 99-126, March.
    12. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    13. Abel, Andrew B & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1983. "On the Econometric Testing of Rationality-Market Efficiency," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(2), pages 318-323, May.
    14. Beaudry, Paul & Portier, Franck, 2007. "When can changes in expectations cause business cycle fluctuations in neo-classical settings?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 458-477, July.
    15. Paul Beaudry & Bernd Lucke, 2010. "Letting Different Views about Business Cycles Compete," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 413-455, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Robert B. Barsky & Eric R. Sims, 2012. "Information, Animal Spirits, and the Meaning of Innovations in Consumer Confidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1343-1377, June.
    17. Per Krusell & Alisdair McKay, 2010. "News shocks and business cycles," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 96(4Q), pages 373-397.
    18. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1983. "Introduction to "A Rational Expectations Approach to Macroeconometrics: Testing Policy Ineffectiveness and Efficient-Markets Models"," NBER Chapters, in: A Rational Expectations Approach to Macroeconometrics: Testing Policy Ineffectiveness and Efficient-Markets Models, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Fabio B. Gaertner & Asad Kausar & Logan B. Steele, 2020. "Negative accounting earnings and gross domestic product," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1382-1409, December.
    20. Konchitchki, Yaniv & Patatoukas, Panos N., 2014. "Accounting earnings and gross domestic product," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 76-88.
    21. Leduc, Sylvain & Liu, Zheng, 2016. "Uncertainty shocks are aggregate demand shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 20-35.
    22. Basu, Sudipta, 1997. "The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 3-37, December.
    23. Rodriguez Mora, Jose V. & Schulstad, Paul, 2007. "The effect of GNP announcements on fluctuations of GNP growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1922-1940, November.
    24. J. Steven Landefeld & Eugene P. Seskin & Barbara M. Fraumeni, 2008. "Taking the Pulse of the Economy: Measuring GDP," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 193-216, Spring.
    25. Francis, J & Hanna, JD & Vincent, L, 1996. "Causes and effects of discretionary asset write-offs," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34, pages 117-134.
    26. William D. Nordhaus, 2002. "The Recent Recession, the Current Recovery, and Stock Prices," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(1), pages 199-228.
    27. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2001. "Vector Autoregressions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 101-115, Fall.
    28. Salman Arif & Charles M. C. Lee, 2014. "Aggregate Investment and Investor Sentiment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(11), pages 3241-3279.
    29. Shivakumar, Lakshmanan, 2007. "Aggregate earnings, stock market returns and macroeconomic activity: A discussion of `does earnings guidance affect market returns? The nature and information content of aggregate earnings guidance'," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1-2), pages 64-73, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Binz, Oliver & Mayew, William J. & Nallareddy, Suresh, 2022. "Firms’ response to macroeconomic estimation errors," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2).
    2. Gabriel P. Mathy, 2020. "How much did uncertainty shocks matter in the Great Depression?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(2), pages 283-323, May.
    3. Laura Nowzohour & Livio Stracca, 2020. "More Than A Feeling: Confidence, Uncertainty, And Macroeconomic Fluctuations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 691-726, September.
    4. Rabah Arezki & Valerie A. Ramey & Liugang Sheng, 2017. "News Shocks in Open Economies: Evidence from Giant Oil Discoveries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 103-155.
    5. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2014. "News-Driven Business Cycles: Insights and Challenges," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(4), pages 993-1074, December.
    6. Danilo Cascaldi‐Garcia & Ana Beatriz Galvao, 2021. "News and Uncertainty Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(4), pages 779-811, June.
    7. Laurent Ferrara & Pierre Guérin, 2018. "What are the macroeconomic effects of high‐frequency uncertainty shocks?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 662-679, August.
    8. repec:wrk:wrkemf:12 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia, 2017. "Amplification effects of news shocks through uncertainty," 2017 Papers pca1251, Job Market Papers.
    10. Sandra Gomes, 2011. "Housing Market Dynamics: Any News?," Working Papers w201121, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    11. Robert B. Barsky & Susanto Basu & Keyoung Lee, 2015. "Whither News Shocks?," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 225-264.
    12. Kyle Jurado, 2016. "Advance Information and Distorted Beliefs in Macroeconomic and Financial Fluctuations," 2016 Meeting Papers 154, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Fan, Haichao & Gao, Xiang & Xu, Juanyi & Xu, Zhiwei, 2016. "News shock, firm dynamics and business cycles: Evidence and theory," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 159-180.
    14. Nadav Ben Zeev, 2019. "Is There A Single Shock That Drives The Majority Of Business Cycle Fluctuations?," Working Papers 1906, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    15. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif A., 2019. "The value of news for economic developments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 210(1), pages 203-218.
    16. Marcelo E. A. Silva & Rafael Vasconcelos & Paulo Vaz, 2022. "Expectations and firm dynamics: Aggregate versus idiosyncratic shocks in emerging economies," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(3), pages 1370-1380.
    17. repec:wrk:wrkemf:31 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Mathias Krogh & Giovanni Pellegrino, "undated". "Real Activity and Uncertainty Shocks: The Long and the Short of It," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0310, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    19. Piergiorgio Alessandri & Andrea Gazzani & Alejandro Vicondoa, 2021. "The real effects of financial uncertainty shocks: A daily identification approach," Working Papers 61, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    20. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Born, Benjamin & Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian, 2019. "Time-varying business volatility and the price setting of firms," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 82-99.
    21. Samuel Wills, 2012. "Optimal Monetary Responses to Oil Discoveries," Discussion Papers 1408, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Apr 2014.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    aggregate earnings; aggregate special items; GDP growth; asymmetric timeliness; rational expectations; news-driven business cycles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:108540. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.