This study examines whether the quality of borrowers' accounting information affects the accuracy and timeliness of credit ratings issued by rating agencies. I consider two possible effects. The news effect posits that higher quality accounting provides better information to credit rating...

This paper attempts to tease out some of the reasons why the history of M&A accounting has been so fraught. It compares the different M&A accounting regimes which have been tried over time in UK, US and international standards. It illustrates the quantitative impact of alternative accounting...

This study examines whether financial statement comparability plays a significant role in mitigating costs of capital in the market for seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). The FASB refers to comparability as a qualitative characteristic of financial reporting that enhances the decision-usefulness...

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 paper examines whether firms that deviate from an empirically modeled ("expected") credit rating engage in earnings management activities, as measured by abnormal accruals and real activities earnings management. We then test whether such actions are successful in helping these firms move...

It is well known that the great Railway Mania in Britain in the1840s had a great impact on accounting. This paper contributes a description and analysis of the events that led to this revolution, and of the key role played by Robert Lucas Nash in those events. He was a pioneer in accounting and...

A firm makes several financial reporting and disclosure decisions in a short period of time. Seemingly unrelated decisions may be correlated because of stability in management traits or the continuation of a firm's accounting information system. We find that firms with greater deviations from...

The accounting standards of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US-GAAP) require from financial institutions to consider multiple macroeconomic scenarios when calculating loan loss provisions. At present, however,...

The nominee approach to equity crowdfunding pools all crowd investors into one (nominee) account where typically the platform acts as the legal owner but the crowd retains beneficial ownership. The platform plays an active digital corporate governance role that simultaneously enfranchises crowd...

The authors review recent literature on the role of corporate financial reporting and transparency in reducing governance-related agency conflicts between managers, directors, shareholders, and other stakeholders—most notably financial regulators—and suggest some avenues for future research....