We exploit a unique opportunity to examine whether goodwill impairment write-offs reflect firms' investment opportunities during the first years of the US goodwill impairment accounting regime. We find that impairment write-offs are negatively associated with firms' underlying investment...

Using an institutional setting where GAAP is relatively unconstrained, we examine whether managers use their goodwill accounting discretion to reflect firms' growth options that are not otherwise captured in reported identifiable assets. We employ a continuous dependent variable to find that...