<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">ABSTRACT</heading>This paper examines the economic consequences of mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) reporting around the world. We analyze the effects on market liquidity, cost of capital, and Tobin's "q" in 26 countries using a large sample of firms that are mandated to adopt...

This paper examines international differences in firms' cost of equity capital across 40 countries. We analyze whether the effectiveness of a country's legal institutions and securities regulation is systematically related to cross-country differences in the cost of equity capital. We employ...

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>We examine changes in firms’ dividend payouts following an exogenous shock to the information asymmetry problem between managers and investors. Agency theories predict a decrease in dividend payments to the extent that improved public information lowers managers’ need to...</p>

Motivated by the debate about globally uniform accounting standards, this study investigates whether firms using U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) vis-à-vis international accounting standards (IAS) exhibit differences in several proxies for information asymmetry. It exploits...