Using a large sample of earnings press releases by Australian firms, we compare multiple attributes of non-GAAP earnings measures with their closest GAAP equivalent. We find that, on average, non-GAAP earnings are more persistent, smoother, more value-relevant, and have higher predictive power...

We revisit the asymmetric timeliness of earnings as proposed by Basu (1997). For a large sample of US firm years from 1970-2019, we show that earnings are asymmetrically timely with respect to bad economic news, and that this is robust to the declining timeliness of good news, different time...

We investigate the extent to which the overvaluation hypothesis provides incentives for managers to beat earnings benchmarks, and whether this benchmark beating can be reliably interpreted as evidence of earnings management. We carefully identify firms immediately above earnings benchmarks that...

We examine whether the provision of non-audit services (NAS) by incumbent auditors is associated with a reduction in the extent of "news-based" earnings conservatism (i.e., the differential extent to which earnings reflect bad news on a timely basis). Reduced earnings conservatism is expected to...

Prior research (Behn et al. 2008) suggests that higher audit quality is associated with increased accuracy and reduced dispersion in earnings forecasts issued by sell-side analysts. We extend this work to consider how audit quality impacts the information environment in which analysts operate....

Using a method that avoids the need to specify earnings expectations (Ball and Shivakumar 2008), we demonstrate that the period surrounding the semi-annual announcement of Australian firms’ earnings is, on average, an important source of information. Although there is substantial year-to-year...

Using a method that avoids the need to specify earnings expectations (Ball and Shivakumar 2008), we demonstrate that the period surrounding the semi-annual announcement of Australian firms’ earnings is, on average, an important source of information. Although there is substantial year-to-year...

We investigate the extent to which international and domestic economic policy uncertainty (EPU) impacts analysts’ earnings forecasts for Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed firms. Over a twenty-year period, we demonstrate that EPU is positively associated with analyst coverage, the...