In June 2020, the auditor of Wirecard, one of Germany's largest publicly traded companies, announced it was unable to issue its 2019 audit report because it could not confirm the existence of €1.9 billion in cash. This follows years of speculation regarding suspicious accounting at the company...

This paper examines how the qualitative characteristics of annual reports vary across different phases of the corporate life cycle. We measure the complexity, tone, and sentiment of 10-Ks, and classify firms into their distinct life cycle phases. Considering a sample of 24,268 firm-year...

Purpose: This study aims to identify characteristics of firms reporting multiple years of material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting (MWICFR), labeled “Repeat Offenders”, and examine their characteristics and the types of material weaknesses they report using both...

Purpose: This study aims to examine the impact of Financial Accounting Standard Board’s Accounting Standard Update (ASU) 2014–15 on auditors’ going concern reporting. ASU 2014–15 provides accounting guidance for managers related to going concern issues, but there is evidence that...

Foreign firms cross-listing in the U.S. benefited from increased accounting quality and valuation stemming from the historically more stringent accounting and regulatory environment in the U.S. compared to their home markets. Auditors of these foreign firms, also facing this more rigorous...

The decade-long debate on required book-tax conformity has centered on three areas: the information content of earnings, the incentive to engage in earnings management, and the costs of compliance. While the first two have been studied extensively, studies on the effect that conformity may have...