We examine the informational role of governments in the private sector in emerging economies. Using a large sample of private firms, we show that governments’ ability and willingness to collect and disseminate economic information (government transparency) is positively associated with...

This paper provides early but broad empirical evidence on a major new investor protection regulation in Europe, MiFID II, which requires investment firms to unbundle investment research from other costs they charge to clients. We predict that the price separation resulting from unbundling and a...

We examine the impact of China's anti-corruption campaign on firm-level financial reporting quality (FRQ). As an important component of the anti-corruption campaign, in October 2013, “Rule 18” was issued to prohibit party and government officials from serving as directors for publicly listed...

We study the ex ante stock market reactions to events leading up to China's convergence to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The literature consistently shows that the benefits of mandatory IFRS convergence are concentrated in countries with stronger legal enforcement and...

This study constructs a novel measure that aims to capture face-to-face private communications between firm managers and sell-side analysts by mapping detailed, large-volume taxi trip records from New York City to the GPS coordinates of companies and brokerages. Consistent with earnings releases...

From the sociolinguistic perspective, this study examines whether the honorific and actual-name appellations that Chinese auditors use to address clients in audit reports connote differential financial misstatement risk. Specifically, we hypothesize that auditors' use of honorifics signals their...

This study examines whether the term of the auditor-client relationship (i.e., auditor tenure) is associated with future stock price crash risk measured both ex ante and ex post. Using a large sample of U.S. public firms with Big Four auditors, we find robust evidence that auditor tenure is...

We examine the effect of auditor conservatism on corporate innovation. We hypothesize that because conservative auditors constrain income-increasing accounting discretion, managers may sacrifice long-term investments in innovation to boost current earnings and meet short-term performance...

Prior analyst literature focuses on the impact of financial analysts on the firms they cover, and prior information-transfer literature concentrates on the externalities of information provided by management. This paper fills gaps in both streams of literature by examining the focal firm's...

Companies' earnings conference calls are perceived to be venues for sell-side equity analysts to ask management questions. In this study, we examine another important conference call participant — the buy-side analyst — that has been underexplored in the literature due to data limitations....