We draw on the investor protection literature to identify structural factors in the financial reporting environment that are likely to explain cross-country differences in the information content of annual earnings announcements. Using data from over 50,000 annual earnings announcements in 26...

We examine the effectiveness of China's IFRS adoption from the perspective of an important set of financial report users, foreign institutional investors. We find that foreign institutional investment does not increase after China's IFRS adoption, and some evidence that it actually declines,...

Proponents of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) argue that mandating a uniform set of accounting standards improves financial statement comparability that in turn attracts greater cross-border investment. Our study tests this assertion by examining the change in foreign mutual...

Using a quasi-natural experiment that mandates a subset of listed firms to issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, this paper examines the effect of mandatory CSR disclosure on market information asymmetry in China, where we estimate information asymmetry using high frequency trade...

Recent research asserts that an essential feature of good corporate governance is strong investor protection, where investor protection is defined as both (1) the extent of the laws that protect investors' rights and (2) the strength of the legal institutions that facilitate law enforcement. The...

We find that analysts are more likely to provide cash flow forecasts in countries with weak investor protection. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that market participants demand (and analysts supply) cash flow information when weak investor protection results in earnings that are...

We test the assertion that a consequence of voluntarily adopting International Accounting Standards (IAS) is the enhanced ability to attract foreign capital. Using a unique database that reports firm-level holdings of over 25,000 mutual funds from around the world, our multivariate tests find...

We examine the impact of corporate board reforms on firm value in 41 countries. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that board reforms increase firm value. Reforms involving board and audit committee independence, but not reforms involving separation of chairman and CEO positions,...

Contracting theory asserts that the income statement's primary role is to provide useful information for management performance evaluation. We study the effect of fair value accounting on this role by examining the change in earnings pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) following the 2005 worldwide...