To estimate abnormal accruals, prior research employs a wide variety of models and estimation procedures. We evaluate the performance of three representative models – modified Jones model (MJ), MJ with operating cash flows (MJOCF), and MJ with return on assets (MJROA) – and two estimation...

Recent theoretical and empirical studies suggest that blockholders (shareholders with ownership ≥ 5%) exert governance through the threat of exit. Blockholders have strong incentives to gather private information and sell their shares when managers are perceived to underperform. To prevent...

Using a large hand-collected sample of all blockholders (ownership ≥ 5%) of S&P 1500 firms for the years 2002–2009, we first document significant individual blockholder effects on earnings management (accrual-based earnings management, real earnings management, and restatements). This...

In this study we examine whether the reported performance of one firm affects the discretionary reporting behavior of another firm. We do this by identifying the leader within each industry, defined as the first large announcing firm. We find that the discretionary performance of followers...

The purpose of our study is to further understand managerial incentives that affect the volatility of reported fiscal-year earnings. We do this by examining income smoothing based on pseudo fiscal years. For each firm, we create pseudo-year earnings using four consecutive quarters other than the...

Beginning with Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131 (SFAS 131), Disclosures about Segments of an Enterprise and Related Information, most U.S. multinational firms no longer disclose geographic earnings in their annual reports. Given the recent growth in foreign operations of U.S....

Beginning with Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131 (SFAS 131), Disclosures about Segments of an Enterprise and Related Information, most U.S. multinational firms no longer disclose geographic earnings in their annual reports. Given the recent growth in foreign operations of U.S....

We examine disclosures of business outlook by rank-and-file employees on Glassdoor.com. Glassdoor.com is a social media platform where employees can share their views publicly and anonymously. We find that employee disclosures are more highly associated with loan spreads in private lending...