Proponents of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) argue that mandating a uniform set of accounting standards improves financial statement comparability that in turn attracts greater cross-border investment. Our study tests this assertion by examining the change in foreign mutual...

Recent research asserts that an essential feature of good corporate governance is strong investor protection, where investor protection is defined as both (1) the extent of the laws that protect investors' rights and (2) the strength of the legal institutions that facilitate law enforcement. The...

We find that analysts are more likely to provide cash flow forecasts in countries with weak investor protection. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that market participants demand (and analysts supply) cash flow information when weak investor protection results in earnings that are...

We test the assertion that a consequence of voluntarily adopting International Accounting Standards (IAS) is the enhanced ability to attract foreign capital. Using a unique database that reports firm-level holdings of over 25,000 mutual funds from around the world, our multivariate tests find...

We draw on the investor protection literature to identify structural factors in the financial reporting environment that are likely to explain cross-country differences in the information content of annual earnings announcements. Using data from over 50,000 annual earnings announcements in 26...