La veracidad de la información financiera bancaria en época de crisislos casos de Estados Unidos y México

Résumé

Financial information, in general and especially from banks, is vital to any society's development. Investors and other interested parties use and expect that financial information will be published periodically. However, we believe that, before and during periods of financial crises, the basic characteristic of the truthfulness of banks' financial information is affected. Accounting needs to inform, but it did not adequately perform this objective during recent financial crises. Given this shortcoming, we performed the study which underlies this doctoral thesis. The basic focus of this thesis is to study and analyze the truthfulness of bank financial information. In order to explore the theoretical and conceptual explanation in this field, we studied financial crises in two different countries during two different periods of time. In order to compare crisis and financial reporting in a developed nation versus a developing country, we examined the 2008 United States financial crisis, due of its worldwide impact, and the 1994 Mexico financial crisis, which has been called the "first crisis of the Twenty First century." Both crises are studied on the basis of a five-step model of financial crisis proposed by Mishkin (2006), which we adapted to analyze bank financial information. In addition, we incorporate the theory of Impression Management (IM) into the model. This modification allowed us to examine the statements of key banks' executives' and their relation to banks' management of banks' earnings (via loan provision and loan loss reserves) We tested our theoretical model by performing a detailed analyses of the financial reporting of Citigroup (in the United States) and Serfin (in Mexico), two large banks which were seriously impacted by each crisis. We also performed a statistical analysis of the relation between the level of bailout assistance and the level of Mexican banks' loan reserves during that nation's crisis. Among the conclusions at which we arrived, and which is the principal contribution of this thesis, is the development of a theoretical model that explains the evolution of the each nation's economic and financial objectives, their relation to financial crises, and their effects on banking financial reporting in a developed country versus a developing nation. The development of this model allowed us to compare the similarities and differences of the factors that affect the development and publication of bank financial reporting during times of crisis. We found that, despite these nations' distinct differences, their respective financial crises of 2008 and 1994 shared many similarities and only a few differences due to cultural and legal tradition, and other aspects of the financial environment, among others. We also confirmed that there is an inverse relationship between IM strategies and truthfulness in bank financial information. Our results also show that greater amounts of financial assistance provided to banks correspond with larger amounts of non -performing loans and greater use of "IM" strategies by banks' executives. Finally, a key conclusion is that changes in policy undertaken during the pre-crisis and crisis stages are not accompanied by changes in bank governance or more truthful bank financial reporting. Rather, these aspects of financial information quality receive attention during the post-crisis period, which further justifies the need for a model of open and flexible economies.