Descriptive statistics (table by authors)
| Panel A: Full sample: descriptive statistics for unscaled variables | |||||
| Variables | Mean | Median | Standard deviation | Minimum | Maximum |
| MV | 14,926,290.870 | 2,013,715.900 | 37,242,972.830 | 2,540.000 | 416,340,378.000 |
| BV | 7,358,805.920 | 1,471,284.000 | 17,186,201.310 | −39,100.000 | 171,229,000.000 |
| GAAP | 953,419.560 | 129,077.500 | 2,901,072.100 | −5,371,757.000 | 36,566,000.000 |
| HEAD | 960,904.510 | 139,091.500 | 2,694,137.130 | −2,589,000.000 | 28,207,000.000 |
| COMB | 1,006,033.410 | 155,888.000 | 2,753,396.530 | −2,589,000.000 | 28,207,000.000 |
| NEG | 0.175 | 0.000 | 0.379 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| RECON | 0.111 | 0.000 | 0.314 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| N | 2,604 | ||||
| Variables | Mean | Median | Standard deviation | Minimum | Maximum |
| Panel B: Firms that report discretionary earnings: descriptive statistics for unscaled variables | |||||
| MV | 27,543,972.680 | 7,653,965.340 | 48,232,948.440 | 58,872.000 | 380,715,608.000 |
| BV | 14,687,050.220 | 5,170,500.000 | 24,793,987.950 | 45,299.000 | 219,910,000.000 |
| GAAP | 1,878,606.690 | 515,814.500 | 3,881,068.770 | −5,371,757.000 | 36,566,000.000 |
| HEAD | 1,839,922.200 | 523,024.830 | 3,515,905.920 | −1,409,000.000 | 27,887,000.000 |
| DISC | 1,993,049.190 | 577,287.750 | 3,670,052.640 | −1,436,900.000 | 27,894,000.000 |
| NEG | 0.096 | 0.000 | 0.294 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| RECON | 0.340 | 0.000 | 0.474 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| N | 846 | ||||
| Panel C: Full sample: univariate correlations for scaled variables | |||||
| Variables | MV | BV | GAAP | HEAD | |
| MV | ***0.755 | ***0.811 | ***0.857 | ||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| BV | ***0.902 | ***0.711 | ***0.817 | ||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| GAAP | ***0.825 | ***0.756 | ***0.949 | ||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| HEAD | ***0.833 | ***0.814 | ***0.924 | ||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| N | 2,604 | ||||
| Panel D: Firms that report discretionary earnings: univariate correlations for scaled variables | |||||
| Variables | MV | BV | GAAP | HEAD | DISC |
| MV | ***0.656 | ***0.727 | ***0.761 | ***0.798 | |
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| BV | ***0.834 | ***0.781 | ***0.851 | ***0.878 | |
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| GAAP | ***0.802 | ***0.747 | ***0.941 | ***0.909 | |
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| HEAD | ***0.859 | ***0.792 | ***0.909 | ***0.976 | |
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| DISC | ***0.910 | ***0.832 | ***0.854 | ***0.939 | |
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| N | 846 | ||||
| Variables | Mean | Median | Standard deviation | Minimum | Maximum |
| MV | 14,926,290.870 | 2,013,715.900 | 37,242,972.830 | 2,540.000 | 416,340,378.000 |
| BV | 7,358,805.920 | 1,471,284.000 | 17,186,201.310 | −39,100.000 | 171,229,000.000 |
| GAAP | 953,419.560 | 129,077.500 | 2,901,072.100 | −5,371,757.000 | 36,566,000.000 |
| HEAD | 960,904.510 | 139,091.500 | 2,694,137.130 | −2,589,000.000 | 28,207,000.000 |
| COMB | 1,006,033.410 | 155,888.000 | 2,753,396.530 | −2,589,000.000 | 28,207,000.000 |
| NEG | 0.175 | 0.000 | 0.379 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| RECON | 0.111 | 0.000 | 0.314 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| N | 2,604 | ||||
| Variables | Mean | Median | Standard deviation | Minimum | Maximum |
| MV | 27,543,972.680 | 7,653,965.340 | 48,232,948.440 | 58,872.000 | 380,715,608.000 |
| BV | 14,687,050.220 | 5,170,500.000 | 24,793,987.950 | 45,299.000 | 219,910,000.000 |
| GAAP | 1,878,606.690 | 515,814.500 | 3,881,068.770 | −5,371,757.000 | 36,566,000.000 |
| HEAD | 1,839,922.200 | 523,024.830 | 3,515,905.920 | −1,409,000.000 | 27,887,000.000 |
| DISC | 1,993,049.190 | 577,287.750 | 3,670,052.640 | −1,436,900.000 | 27,894,000.000 |
| NEG | 0.096 | 0.000 | 0.294 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| RECON | 0.340 | 0.000 | 0.474 | 0.000 | 1.000 |
| N | 846 | ||||
| Variables | MV | BV | GAAP | HEAD | |
| MV | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| BV | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| GAAP | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| HEAD | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | |||
| N | 2,604 | ||||
| Variables | MV | BV | GAAP | HEAD | DISC |
| MV | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| BV | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| GAAP | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| HEAD | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| DISC | |||||
| (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | (<0.001) | ||
| N | 846 | ||||
Notes:
MV is the cum dividend market value of equity, three months after the reporting date; BV is the book value of equity; GAAP is GAAP earnings; HEAD is headline earnings; DISC is discretionary earnings; COMB is discretionary earnings if reported and headline earnings if not; NEG is an indicator variable set to one if GAAP is negative and zero otherwise; RECON is an indicator variable set to one if a detailed reconciliation of discretionary earnings is placed ahead of the financial statements in the results announcement and zero otherwise. All unscaled variables are reported in thousands of South African rand (ZAR), while scaled variables are scaled by number of shares outstanding. Pearson (Spearman) correlations are reported above (below) the diagonal in Panels C and D. Two-tailed p-values are reported in brackets.
denotes significance at the 1% level
Sharing content requires targeting cookies to be enabled. Please update your cookie preferences to use this feature.