The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on financial reporting delay. Evidence from Ghana

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics.

Variable	Obs	Mean	Median	Std. dev	Min	Max
DELAY_DAYS	300	41.475	40.112	14.85	0.000	83.00
COVID_INF	300	0.271	0.000	0.114	0.000	1.000
FRM_SIZE	300	17.983	22.354	2.434	12.586	23.187
ROA	300	0.09	0.044	0.408	−5.650	0.825
LEV	300	0.765	0.628	1.218	0.021	21.126
BRDSIZE	300	8.03	9.251	1.813	4.000	16.000
BRD_IND	300	0.731	0.307	0.145	0.291	0.910
GROWTH	300	0.256	0.114	0.461	−0.847	5.754
BIG4	300	0.835	1.000	0.372	0.000	1.000
AGE	300	25.938	30.00	18.763	1.000	58.00

DELAY_DAYS is the Published financial report later than 3 months after the close of the financial year. COVID_INF is a dummy variable where 1 represent confirm COVID-19 infection in a region in a year and 0 if otherwise. GROWTH is the natural log of change in annual revenue. AGE is the number of years a Company has been in operation. BIG4 is a dummy variable where ‘1’ if the firm is audited by Big4, ‘0’ if otherwise. ROA is the net income /total asset. Leverage is the Total Debt to total assets. BRDSIZE is the number of board directors. FRM_SIZE is the size of the firm estimated as the Log of total Assets. BRD_IND is the percentage of non-executive board members to total board.

Table 2. Regression results of COVID-19 and financial reports delay.

DELAY_DAYS	Model 1	Model 2
COVID_INF	0.530***	0.391***
	(5.78)	(8.22)
FRM_SIZE		0.020***
		(5.01)
BRDSIZE		−0.012**
		(−2.01)
AGE		−0.006
		(−0.75)
GROWTH		0.131***
		(7.28)
LEV		0.028**
		(2.40)
BRD_IND		−0.004**
		(−2.10)
BIG4		−0.555**
		(−2.63)
ROA		−0.006
		(−0.46)
Constant	0.140**	0.172**
	(2.14)	(2.53)
Obs.	300	300
R-squared	0.383	0.501
Year FE	NO	YES
Firm FE	NO	YES

^{*, **, and ***} indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively. T-statistics in parenthesis. DELAY_DAYS is the Published financial report later than 3 months after the close of the financial year. COVID_INF is an indicator variable where 1 represents confirmed COVID-19 infection in a region in a year and 0 if otherwise. GROWTH is the natural log of change in annual revenue, AGE is the number of years a Company has been in operation. BIG4 is a dummy variable ‘1’ if the firm is audited by Big4, ‘0’ if otherwise. ROA is the net income/total asset. LEV is the Total Debt to total assets. BRDSIZE is the number of board directors. FRM_SIZE is the size of the firm estimated as the Log of total Assets. BRD_IND is the percentage of non-executive board members to total board.

Table 3. Robustness test of COVID-19 and financial reports delay.

DELAY_DAYS	Model 1	Model 2
NUM_CASES	0.811***	0.672***
	(7.26)	(6.45)
FRM_SIZE	0.023***	0.031***
	(4.87)	(5.67)
BRDSIZE	−0.010**	−0.016**
	(−2.15)	(−3.08)
AGE	−0.007	−0.008
	(−1.45)	(−1.03)
GROWTH	0.115**	0.201**
	(3.10)	(2.36)
LEV	0.004**	0.008**
	(2.22)	(2.15)
BRD_IND	0.013**	0.012**
	(3.16)	(2.40)
BIG4	−0.213**	−0.421**
	(−2.09)	(−3.35)
ROA	−0.006	−0.008
	(−0.15)	(−0.57)
Constant	0.234***	0.343***
	(4.96)	(5.91)
Obs.	300	300
R-squared	0.409	0.581
Year FE	NO	YES
Firm FE	NO	YES

*, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively. T-statistics in parenthesis DELAY_DAYS is the Published financial report later than 3 months after the close of the financial year. NUM_CASES is the total number confirmed COVID-19 infection cases in each region of Ghana. GROWTH is the natural log of change in annual revenue.AGE is the number of years a Company has been in operation. BIG4 is a dummy variable ‘1’ if the firm is audited by Big4, ‘0’ if otherwise. ROA is the net income/total asset. LEV is the Total Debt to total assets. BRDSIZE is the number of board directors. FRM_SIZE is the size of the firm estimated as the Log of total Assets. BRD_IND is the percentage of non-executive board members to total board.

Table 4. Further analysis of financial reports delays based on firms’ financial performance.

	Low-performance firms		High-performance firms
DELAY_DAYS	Model 1	Model 2	Model 1	Model 2
COVID_INF	0.331***		0.048
	(7.69)		(0.86)
NUM_CASES		0.517***		0.110*
		(6.54)		(1.95)
CONTROLS	YES	YES	YES	YES
Obs.	135	135	165	165
R-squared	0.342	0.438	0.482	0.561
Year FE	YES	YES	YES	YES
Firm FE	YES	YES	YES	YES
Coefficient test between the low-performance firm and high-performance firms COVID_INF chi2 (1) = 8.23 Prob > chi2 = 0.0013**
NUM_CASES chi2 (1) = 7.19 Prob > chi2 = 0.0021**

*, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively. robust errors are in parenthesis.

Table 5. Further analysis for reporting delays based on firms’ ownership.

	Public firms (listed)		Private firms (unlisted)
DELAY_DAYS	Model 1	Model 2	Model 1	Model 2
COVID_INF	0.031*		0.066***
	(1.95)		(4.86)
NUM_CASES		0.084**		0.213***
		(3.14)		(5.78)
CONTROLS	YES	YES	YES	YES
Obs.	90	90	210	210
R-squared	0.237	0.313	0.421	0.462
Year FE	YES	YES	YES	YES
Firm FE	YES	YES	YES	YES
Coefficient test between the public firms and private firms
COVID_INF chi2 (1) = 21.01 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000**
NUM_CASES chi2 (1) = 8.29 Prob > chi2 = 0.0033**

*, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively. robust errors are in parenthesis.

Data availability statement

Data for this original research work will be available by the corresponding author upon request.