In this cross-border study, we document the usefulness of reported earnings as conditioned by varying levels of litigation risk. We focus on litigation risk, since Ball (2001) suggests that although litigation rights are seldom discussed in the context of international accounting, the threat of...

In recent years, both the SEC (2003) and the FASB (2004) have indicated a need for accounting standards where principles are balanced by implementation guidance (i.e., a framework for exercising professional judgment). In this study, we take advantage of a jurisdictional split during 1996-2001...

Both the GAO (2003, 2008) and the US Treasury (2008) have implied that the Big 4 dominated US audit market lacks competition. More recently, the PCAOB has expressed a somewhat different concern, i.e., that because audit committees may be primarily interested in negotiating a lower audit fee...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are perceived to have negative consequences for society at large by contributing to potential climate change and represent a potential cash drain from firms from exposure to future regulatory, abatement, and compliance costs. Beginning in 2010, US companies are...

We examine whether the December 2007 PCAOB disciplinary order against Deloitte affected Deloitte's switching risk, audit fees, and audit quality relative to the other Big 4 firms over a three-year period following the censure. Our findings suggest that the PCAOB censure was associated with a...

A critical issue in international financial management is that of "balancing the government's books" (The Economist 1994, p. 73). Since governmental commitments to maintaining or improving citizens' well-being are subject to re­source constraints, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board...

This study addresses whether an auditor change (a resignation or a dismissal) mitigates information asymmetry as measured by market liquidity or trading activity. For auditor dismissals our results show no effect on our sample firms' market liquidity or trading activity. By contrast, for auditor...

High disclosure standards are perceived to be the cornerstone of the U.S. securities markets. However. the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prohibits the quantification of unproved reserves by U.S. oil and gas firms (based on the argument that it would mislead unsophisticated individual...

This paper provides an introduction to and a review of governmental capital markets based research. It updates earlier studies and focuses on recent methodological developments. Prior research is classified ac­cording to the type of data used, emphasizing special topics that have received...

The most visible credit market measure of the fiscal health of a municipality is the credit rating. In this article we ask whether the credit rating fully incorporates the fiscal stresses faced by municipal governments. We utilize state "tax effort" as a measure of the fiscal stress faced by a...