We find that shorts establish significant positions more than a year before the average restatement announcement, those positions increase as the announcement month approaches, and the largest positions are held in companies that will announce an accounting irregularity that attracts class...

This paper examines how the characteristics of accounting systems and management incentives interact and collectively determine financial reporting quality. We develop a rational expectations equilibrium model that features a steady-state firm with investments, financial and non-financial...

Currently, businesses face an information disclosure approach involving the triple bottom line (social, environmental, and financial). This paper aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) information and financial reporting quality (FRQ). We argue that...

A premise of standard setters and of much empirical research is that improving the quality of accounting standards and their implementation increases information in capital markets. This paper challenges this premise and shows that there are situations in which “better”, i.e., more...

One of the goals of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (hereafter SOX) was to restore confidence in financial reporting by providing incentive for firms to report financial results that reflect the underlying economic performance. Early findings are inconclusive on the success of the Act. Cohen, Dey and Lys...

Public hospitals in the U.K. apply GAAP as modified by the Treasury, the Financial Reporting Advisory Board (FRAB) and the Department of Health. Individual National Health Service (NHS) Trusts apply their interpretation of the accounting manuals with further guidance and scrutiny from oversight...

Psychologists have studied human behavior for over a century and, as a result, have developed a robust set of theories regarding how people behave. Most financial accounting issues deal with matters of human behavior, such as the judgments and decisions of managers, investors, analysts, and...

This paper make four important contributions to the accounting literature. First, it shows that discretionary accruals are associated with CEO cash compensation, but that the coefficient is significantly less than that on nondiscretionary accruals. Second, a differential reaction is found to...

This study investigates whether opportunistic earnings management affects the value relevance of net income and book value in determining stock price. We document a decrease in the value relevance of earnings in the year of an equity offering for a group of firms that exhibit ex post evidence of...

This study provides evidence concerning the significance of assessing operational control risks as part of an integrative evaluation of internal controls. We examine whether operational control weaknesses can be used as cues to potential unreported financial reporting control weaknesses, and in...