We investigate the credibility of forward-looking performance disclosures (FLPDs) in the narrative sections of annual reports, as perceived by investors. Our proxy for these disclosures is an index of statements about future performance. We find that companies issue more FLPDs when raising debt...

We hypothesize and provide evidence that the economic consequences of managerial accounting discretion vary systematically with volatility in firm fundamentals. Unlike common approaches in the literature that identify managerial discretion as orthogonal to business volatility, we use a model...

We develop a comprehensive measure of the quality of corporate financial communication. Net bad flows (NBF) captures bad news withholding and is calculable for all listed companies using daily stock return data. NBF indicates the relative lumpiness of bad news flows during the fiscal period. We...

We measure annual report commentary articulating entities' business model and strategy, and then examine the capital market effects of enhancing such disclosure. Our empirical disclosure proxy is based on n-grams drawn from popular strategy textbooks and the academic strategy literature....

We study changes in the number of CEO stock option grants. Motivated by evidence of rigidity in stock option grants, we first provide a detailed description of the main aggregate trends in CEO stock option grants. We then consider the cross-sectional heterogeneity in option-granting activity and...

We hypothesise and test for a U-shaped relation between the cost of equity capital and the level of disclosure in annual report narratives. Using a computer-generated word-count-based index of the level of disclosure in U.K. annual report narratives, we document a negative relation with the cost...

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether earnings quality contributes to the book-to- market's predictive power in the cross section of stock returns. Earnings quality is embedded in the value-growth effect given that retained earnings is a key part of the book value of equity. Earnings...