We assess the role of both accruals manipulation (AM) and real activities manipulation (RAM) in inducing overvaluation at the time of a seasoned equity offering (SEO). Our results reveal that earnings management is most consistently and predictably linked with post-SEO stock market...

We examine the link between the scarcity of arbitrage capital and investors' response to firms' earnings information. Our tests are motivated by the idea that the cost of financing levered investment strategies (i.e., investing with borrowed funds) increases in the risk profile of the securities...

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown to create a body...

In this study, we examine whether managers delay disclosure of bad news relative to good news. If managers accumulate and withhold bad news up to a certain threshold, but leak and immediately reveal good news to investors, then we expect the magnitude of the negative stock price reaction to bad...

We show that the agency theory of overvalued equity (see Jensen, 2005) rather than investors' fixation on accruals explains the accrual anomaly, i.e., abnormal returns to an accrual trading strategy (see Sloan, 1996).Under the agency theory of overvalued equity, managers of overvalued firms are...

The advent of the Great Recession in 2008 was the culmination of a perfect storm of lax regulation, a growing housing bubble, rising popularity of derivatives instruments, and questionable banking practices. In addition to these causes, management incentives, as well as certain US accounting...

We show real effects in the banking sector that emanate from transparency in the industrial sector. Transparent financial reporting by industrial firms facilitates access to arm's-length financing from capital markets and diminishes these firms' reliance on banks. Banks, as a result, face...

This monograph is not a review of the empirical accounting literature. This monograph tells a story and relates it to salient empirical phenomena. Why does accounting exist? Our answer is that financial accounting helps firms function efficiently. That efficiency is manifested in many ways, and...

We document frequent and large selling of equity by CEOs. Such selling is designed not simply to offset the current year grant of options and stock. We find that the tax burden associated with the sale and (various measures of CEO) overconfidence both decrease CEOs' propensity to sell their...