Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of US firms' postretirement benefits choices. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses empirical methodology (univariate and multivariate) to test the research hypotheses. Findings – Industry norm, average employee age,...

Purpose – This paper aims to address three questions: Does the abnormal delay in the audit process signal poor earnings quality? Is this information about earnings quality incremental to that contained in earnings report delay? Does the market use this information about earnings quality in...

We investigate the change in the value-relevance of earnings and book value information in the financial industry compared to other industries from 1970 to 2005. Prior literature provides mixed evidence as to whether value-relevance reduces over time. Our sample consists of 34,252 firm-year...

Prior research documents that gains from non-recurring transactions flow through to CEOs' compensation, but that losses from non-recurring transactions do not. This paper extends extant literature by exploring the determinants of this phenomenon. We provide evidence that the prior findings of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the Enron scandal, Arthur Andersen's demise and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on audit fees. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses empirical methodology (univariate and multivariate). Findings – Audit fees and the Big-4...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that director turnover varies in predictable and intuitive ways with director incentives. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a sample of 51,388 observations pertaining to 13,084 directors who served 1,065 firms during the period...