Accountability is the cornerstone of democracy. Fiscal accountability is particularly important to an electorate. The system of fiscal accountability developed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board is too complex and technical for the public, being beyond all but specially trained...

Dechow and Sloan [1991] investigate the hypothesis that CEOs, during their final years of office (the "horizon" years), manage discretionary expenditures to improve short-term earnings performance. Using a sample of 261 firm-years, this study extends the Dechow and Sloan model by including...

This study investigates the market valuation of the effect of goodwill tax amortization on corporate acquisitions. Specifically, the study tests whether a significant positive change exists in the market reaction to acquisitions qualifying for the Internal Revenue Code section 197. Two...

This study provides empirical evidence on the impact of high-tech firms' unrecognized intangible investments on the market valuation of cash flow and accrual amounts. In particular, this study empirically examines the different valuation weights that capital market participants attach to...

This study examines whether accounting standards or institutional factors are the prime determinants of differences in value relevance of accounting numbers across countries. The motivation for this study arises from ongoing accounting harmonization efforts to increase the comparability of...

This dissertation examines the stock market reaction to 474 announcements of hiring chief information officers (CIOs) in the 1987--2002 period, and firm performance for periods up to two years following the CIO appointment. The study reports that the announcements are associated with...

This paper examines the association between the employment of industry specialist auditors, and the degree of information asymmetry and the cost of debt of a client company. Unlike auditors without industry expertise, auditors with industry expertise can better improve the credibility of...

Auditor independence has been a long-standing issue for regulators resulting in numerous studies on the subject on how to enhance it and numerous rules that attempt to ensure it (e.g. Cohen Report 1978; ASR 250 1978; SEC Rule 2-01 2000). One of regulators' most recent attempts to shore up auditor...

This study examines two questions: (1) whether the level professional judgment required in the application of accounting standards affects the comparability of financial reporting; (2) whether financial statement preparers exploit the professional judgment in accounting standards in order to...

My objective is to evaluate whether managers, when executive stock options (ESOs) are part of their compensation, manipulate earnings by using discretionary accruals (DAs).