Basu's [“The Conservatism Principle and the Asymmetric Timeliness of Earnings.” Journal of Accounting and Economics 24 (1997): 3–37] measurement of conditional conservatism as the asymmetric timeliness of earnings underlies hundreds of studies. However, many subsequent studies cast doubt on the extent to which Basu's measure captures conditional conservatism versus statistical biases or alternative constructs (collectively, “biases”), thereby questioning the validity of the inferences that empirical researchers draw from analyses using the measure. We modify Basu's measure in four simple ways to remove these biases. Our key modification is the inclusion of interactive controls for return variance, a volatility proxy that captures Patatoukas and Thomas’ [“More Evidence of Bias in Differential Timeliness Estimates of Conditional Conservatism.” The Accounting Review 86 (2011): 1765–1794] return variance effect and various sources of economic optionality and adjustment costs. This inclusion captures volatility-related effects on both the level of earnings and the sensitivity of earnings to returns, and it allows the magnitudes of these effects to vary with the sign of returns. We conduct validation analyses using placebo-dependent variables, synthetic returns, and nonconditionally conservative earnings components that show our modified Basu measure is largely free of known biases. We further show that our measure is associated with contracting and other economic variables as predicted by theory. Our findings suggest that researchers can rely on our modified Basu measure to identify the determinants and effects of conditional conservatism.

中文翻译：

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消除条件保守主义的测量偏差

Basu 的 [“保守主义原则和收益的不对称及时性”。会计与经济学杂志24 (1997): 3-37] 作为数百项研究的基础，对条件保守主义的衡量是收益的不对称及时性。然而，许多随后的研究对巴苏的措施在多大程度上捕捉条件保守主义与统计偏差或替代结构（统称为“偏差”）表示怀疑，从而质疑实证研究人员从使用该措施的分析中得出的推论的有效性。我们以四种简单的方式修改 Basu 的度量以消除这些偏差。我们的关键修改是包含对回报方差的交互式控制，这是一种捕捉 Patatoukas 和 Thomas 的[“条件保守主义的差异及时性估计中偏差的更多证据”的波动率代理。会计审查86 (2011): 1765–1794] 回报方差效应和经济可选性和调整成本的各种来源。这种包含捕获了对收益水平和收益对回报敏感度的波动相关影响，并允许这些影响的大小随回报的符号而变化。我们使用安慰剂相关变量、合成回报和无条件保守的收益成分进行验证分析，这些成分表明我们修改后的 Basu 度量在很大程度上没有已知偏差。我们进一步表明，我们的衡量标准与理论预测的合同和其他经济变量有关。我们的研究结果表明，研究人员可以依靠我们修改后的 Basu 测量来确定条件保守主义的决定因素和影响。