The prior literature indicates that financial policy (e.g., payout policy) as well as accounting policy (e.g., conservatism) can be used to address incentive problems in firms but finds mixed evidence. We conjecture that stock repurchases, an increasingly popular form of payout, and conservatism...

The retained earnings hypothesis predicts that stock distributions accounted for by reducing retained earnings are a more credible signal of managerial optimism than stock distributions that do not reduce retained earnings. This study examines the costs of false signaling that are a necessary...

The retained earnings hypothesis predicts that stock distributions accounted for by reducing retained earnings are a more credible signal of managerial optimism than stock distributions that do not reduce retained earnings. This study examines the costs of false signaling that are a necessary...

Does growth lead to stock price crashes? In this study, we find that total asset growth positively relates to future crash risk and the relationship is robust for various asset, liability, and equity components of the balance sheet. Consistent with the managerial empire-building incentive,...

We examine whether initial loan sales in the secondary loan market relate to borrowing firms' accounting conservatism. We find that borrowing firms exhibit a significant decline in accounting conservatism after the initial loan sales. We show that the decline in borrower conservatism is more...

We examine the relation between legal, extra-legal and political institutional factors and earnings quality of banks across countries. We predict that earnings quality is higher in countries with legal, extra-legal and political systems that reduce the consumption of private control benefits by...

This study examines the economic implications of fair value liability gains and losses arising from the adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 159 (hereafter, FAS 159). Consistent with the notion that gains and losses contain value-relevant information, we find a positive...

We investigate the moderate effect of the CEO knowledge-based background on goodwill impairment and abnormal return, and its direct effect on the likelihood of goodwill impairment announcement. We apply the educational background, financial background, and overseas background to represent the...

Under IFRS, managers can use two approaches to increase the estimated fair value of goodwill in order to justify not recognizing impairment: (1) make overly optimistic valuation assumptions, and (2) increase future cash flow forecasts by inflating current cash flows. Because enforcement...

We examine how the threat of exit by non-blockholders (investors with ownership 5%) relates to firms’ income smoothing. Unlike informed blockholders, non-blockholders lack private information and therefore rely more on reported accounting numbers to evaluate firm performance. To isolate the...