This paper examines a fundamental question of interest to researchers and regulators: Does the market treat disclosed financial statement information as if it is less reliable than information recognized in the body of the financial statements? Specifically, we compare the perceived reliability...

After many years of debating the appropriate treatment for goodwill, Malaysia finally has an enforceable accounting standard on this topic. Applicable for business combinations with reporting dates commencing on or after 1 January 2006, FRS 136 - Impairment of Assets requires that goodwill...

The recent increase in the usefulness of earnings announcements is associated with the disclosure of income statements (Francis et al., 2002) and non-GAAP financial measures (Collins et al., 2005). This paper extends these results by investigating the disclosure and informativeness of non-GAAP...

We investigate the accounting quality attributes of nineteen general purpose accounting standards implemented over the past thirty years. Our research is timely given recent criticism of U.S. standard setting, within the context of international convergence. Evidence on how U.S. accounting...

Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 131 issued in 1997, regulates the reporting of geographic segment information by U.S. firms SFAS. 131: Reporting Disaggregated Information about a Business Enterprise and Related Information supersedes previous segment-reporting rules of SFAS No.14...

This study tests the agency cost hypothesis in the context of geographic earnings disclosures. The agency cost hypothesis predicts that managers, when not monitored by shareholders, will make self-maximizing decisions which may not necessarily be in the best interest of shareholders. These...

Beginning with Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131 (SFAS 131), Disclosures about Segments of an Enterprise and Related Information, most U.S. multinational firms no longer disclose geographic earnings in their annual reports. Given the recent growth in foreign operations of U.S....

Landsman and Maydew (2002) document that the information content of earnings announcements has increased over the past three decades, and Francis, Schipper, and Vincent (2002) conclude that expanded concurrent disclosures in firms' earnings announcements, especially the inclusion of detailed...

This paper derives the implications of strategic disclosure for the earnings-returns relation within a setting derived from Dye (1985), Jung and Kwon (1988), and Ohlson (1995), in which firms' managers disclose favourable earnings forecasts and withhold unfavourable earnings forecasts. It shows...

This paper examines the 2005 financial disclosure for Evans and Tate Limited and its controlled entities. The first section of the paper examines the composition of the group, group profit, group taxation, and the impact of IFRS. One key finding is there is no estimate by the company as to the...