Using a dataset which records banks' ongoing requests of information from small commercial borrowers, we examine when banks use financial statements to monitor borrowers after loan origination. We find banks request financial statements for half the loans and this variation is related to...

The new accounting standard requires that _nancial institutions provision for life-time expected losses on their loan portfolios. We develop a model for estimating long-term expected loan losses that incorporates a wide range of bank- and aggregate-level predictors of future losses. The model...

The accuracy of firm information disclosures and the efficiency of long-term investment both play crucial roles in the economy and capital markets. We estimate a dynamic model that captures a trade-off between these two goals that arises when managers confront realistic incentives to misreport...

A substantial literature investigates conditional conservatism, defined as asymmetric accounting recognition of economic shocks (ldquo;newsrdquo;), and how it depends on various market, political and institutional variables. Studies typically assume the Basu (1997) asymmetric timeliness...

Traders operating in informal economies rarely use financial information in their credit allocation decisions. Using a combination of survey questions and a hypothetical choice experiment, we study the frictions impeding traders’ financial information use in a bazaar economy. Based on...

We use equity portfolio allocation decisions to study the relevance of accounting information for investors’ demand for stocks. We document significant heterogeneity across investors in the demand relevance of profitability measures and income statement components. Although operating profit...

Lending concentration features prominently in models of information acquisition by banks, but empirical evidence on its role is limited because banks rarely disclose details about their exposures or information collection. Using a dataset of bank-level commercial loan exposures, we find banks...

We use a proprietary dataset of financial statements collected by banks to examine whether economic growth is related to the use of financial statement verification in debt financing. Exploiting the distinct economic growth and contraction patterns of the construction industry over the years...

We propose an empirical measure of firms' metering problems. We build on the notion that metering problems are reflected in the intensity with which firms apply Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to map economic transactions onto financial statements. We develop an algorithm to...

We investigate the extent to which hedge fund managers smooth self‐reported returns. In contrast with prior research on the “anomalous” properties of hedge fund returns, we observe the mechanisms used to price the fund's investment positions and report the fund's performance to investors,...