This study provides evidence that, when “hard” freezing their defined benefit pension plans, employers select downward biased accounting assumptions to exaggerate the economic burden of their benefit plans. Downward biased expected rates of return and discount rates allow managers to...

We examine the causes and consequences of European real estate firms' decisions to provide investment property fair values prior to the required disclosure of this information under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We find evidence that investor demand for fair value...

In recent years, credit rating agencies have faced increased regulatory pressure and investor criticism for their ratings' lack of timeliness. This study investigates whether and how rating agencies respond to such pressure and criticism. We find that the rating agencies not only improve rating...

Standard finance theory suggests that managers invest in projects that, in expectation, produce returns that justify the use of capital. An underlying assumption is that managers have the information necessary to understand the distributional properties of the pay-offs underlying the decision....