Purpose – This paper aims to assess the financial performance of firms that adopted or deferred the adoption of SSAP 20 “Foreign Currency Translation”. The focus of the study is to examine the impact of certain accounting issues, such as liquidity, hedging, foreign currency loans,...

Financial Reporting Standard No3 (FRS 3): Reporting Financial Performance, which came into force in 1993, increased UK firms' discretion in classifying exceptional items. We examine how this increased discretion affected their use of classificatory smoothing and inter-temporal smoothing through...

We examine whether UK firms engage in earnings management or forecast guidance to ensure that their reported earnings meet analyst earnings expectations. We explore two earnings management mechanisms: (a) positive abnormal working capital accruals; and (b) classification shifting of core...