We investigate how local political corruption shapes corporate financial reporting conservatism. Using a large sample of U.S. public firms, we find that firms located in areas with higher levels of political corruption tend to adopt greater accounting conservatism. This finding is robust to...

This study investigates whether a firm's cost of equity capital is influenced by the extent of a firm's real activities management. Using a large sample of U.S. firms, we find that our proxy for the cost of capital is positively associated with the extent of earnings management through the real...

We investigate the effect of board governance and takeover protection on real earnings management. Four types of real earnings management are considered: sales manipulation, overproduction, the abnormal reduction of research and development (R&D) expenses, and the abnormal reduction of other...

We examine the association between real earnings management and the cost of new bond issues of U.S. corporations. We consider three types of real earnings management: sales manipulation, overproduction, and the abnormal reduction of discretionary expenditures. We find that overproduction impairs...

This study investigates whether and how the information values of reported earnings and their components changed around the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998. Regression analyses on a sample of 10,406 firm-years from nine Asian countries from 1995 to 2000 reveal the following. First, the...

This study investigates the role of earnings and cash flows in equity valuation under severe uncertainty about firm fundamentals. We hypothesize that the valuation weight on cash flows (earnings) increases (decreases) with the degree of fundamental uncertainty because earnings, which include...

Taking advantage of the institutional difference in capture between local and non-local media in China, we examine the association between media capture and post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD). Using both portfolio and regression analyses, we find that, for the same firms, non-local media...

We examine the economic benefits of paying dividends. We find that dividend payments mitigate stock price crash risk. In addition, we show that dividend payments reduce bad news hoarding (overinvestment) while bad news hoarding (overinvestment) is positively associated with stock price crash...

We study the consequences of firm-specific stock price crashes (SPCs) by examining whether, and if so, how SPCs affect market information efficiency. This contrasts with prior research that focuses on firm-specific causes or determinants of SPCs. The tension underlying our research question...

This study examines the association between chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence and future stock price crash risk. Overconfident managers overestimate the returns to their investment projects and misperceive negative net present value (NPV) projects as value creating. They also tend to...