Doctoral theses
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Browsing Doctoral theses by Author "Columbano, Claudio"
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Publication Disclosure, use and interpretation of the financial information of governments: three essays(IE University, 2021-03-11) Columbano, Claudio; Trombetta, Marco; https://ror.org/02jjdwm93This dissertation offers three studies aimed at shedding new light on the disclosure, use and interpretation of the financial information released by governments. The first two chapters are based on a hand-collected data set covering the forecasts disclosed by European Union governments over the period 2001-2018. The third chapter is based on 27 interviews with sovereign rating personnel working at four credit rating agencies and on archival material. Thechapters contribute novel perspectives on the peculiar financing reporting problem that confronts governments. In particular, the first chapter shows that the transparency of governmental financial disclosures responds to a cost-benefit trade-off similar to that which characterizes corporations. Accordingly, governments’ disclosure choices are self-interested, but they are not always driven by opportunistic motives. The second chapter reveals that equity investorsare active users of government forecasts, although they interpret them heterogeneously. In particular, the credibility of government’s commitment appears to explain the emergence of differential interpretations among investors when governments issue optimistic forecasts. The third chapter documents that credit rating analysts, too, differ in their interpretation of the financial information released by governments and use their subjective judgment to make up for the short comings of automated valuation models. Collectively, the dissertation extends extant accounting research by providing new perspectives on theunderstudied financial reporting problem that characterizes governments.