We examine whether managers' decisions to capitalize or expense R&D expenditures convey information about the future performance of the firm. Focusing on a French setting where managers can choose to capitalize R&D expenditures under certain circumstances, we find that, after controlling for...

Accounting for R&D costs is an open issue. SFAS N°2 mandates that all R&D costs must be immediately expensed. IAS 38 requires capitalization of R&D costs if they meet certain criteria. Recent research papers show the value relevance of capitalized R&D. We test the value relevance of R&D...

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on how forecasts information is disclosed in IPO prospectuses. In France, managers report either detailed forecasts or only a brief summary. Design/methodology/approach – The authors investigate the determinants and consequences of the varying levels of...

The paper sets out to analyse the effects of the financial crisis on the international standard-setter in 2008 and the attempts made to shoot the messenger -- to blame IAS 39 for creating the crisis for reporting unrealised losses, rather than the cause being bankers making bad investment...

This study investigates the economic consequences of non-English-speaking companies adopting English as an external reporting language. We examine a sample of European companies that initiate the voluntary issuance of an annual report in English in addition to the local language annual report....

We review the academic literature on the use of financial reporting information by capital providers. We classify our findings by investor type and by information objective. While most capital providers use accounting information, our survey indicates that they do so in a variety of ways with...

In recent years, the determinants of voluntary disclosure have been explored in an extensive body of empirical research. One major limitation of those studies is that none has tried to find out whether voluntary disclosures were occasional or continuous over time. Yet this point is particularly...

In this article, we analyse factors that explain the success of the empirical methodology of ‘positive accounting theory’ (PA) in accounting research. In fewer than ten years, between 1960 and 1967--1968, PA became dominant in the main accounting journals, and normative theories disappeared...

We use a unique and confidential database of 15,392 tax audits performed by the Croatian Tax Administration during the 2002–2006 period to examine the impact of task complexity, auditor experience, and auditor effort on audit performance. We provide external validation to prior experimental...

Very few countries require directors to be financially literate. This article investigates the determinants of boards' financial expertise using a sample of 95 nonfinancial French listed firms. We construct a measure of financial expertise based on educational and career background data for 943...