Accounting for research and development (R&D) costs is an open issue. SFAS n°2 mandates that all R&D costs are immediately expensed. International standards prescribe a capitalization of R&D costs if they meet certain criteria (IAS 38). The cost method is perfectly objective and verifiable. The...

Is earnings management affecting (driving) the measures of earnings conservatism? If discretionary accruals were on average negative, earnings management practices would be enhancing the association between bad news periods earnings and returns, whilst the opposite would occur in good news...

We examine whether managers' decisions to capitalize or expense R&D expenditures convey information about the future performance of the firm. Focusing on a French setting where managers can choose to capitalize R&D expenditures under certain circumstances, we find that, after controlling for...