Testing the rational expectations hypotheses on accounting numbers in Tehran stock exchange

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to test the persistence and pricing of earnings, CFO and accruals using Iranian data. In response to arguments concerning omitted variables in the Mishkin (1983) test, it seeks to explore asymmetric effects by incorporating omitted variable capturing firm size, firm growth, sales and its variations and net operating assets into forecasting and pricing equations. The results indicate that, 1) CFO is more persistent than ACC, 2) excluding omitted variables, stock market price earnings and its components irrationally and 3) including omitted variables, stock market price earnings and its components irrationally, too.