This study extends the employee stock option literature by examining how the timing of sales of shares acquired at exercise varies with accrual management both before and after the exercise date. We find evidence that accrual management prior to exercise is positively associated with the...

Prior literature suggests that the market underreacts to the positive correlation in a typical firm's seasonal earnings changes, which leads to a post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD) in prices. We examine the market reaction for a distinct set of firms whose seasonal earnings changes are...

Prior literature suggests that the market underreacts to the positive correlation in a typical firm's seasonal earnings changes, which leads to a post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD) in prices. We examine the market reaction for a distinct set of firms whose seasonal earnings changes are...

Khan and Watts (2009) develop a firm-year measure of conditional conservatism, labeled C_Score, that builds on the Basu (1997) asymmetric timeliness (AT) measure. However, recent research documents an asymmetric relation between lagged earnings and current returns, indicative of bias in the Basu...

The executive compensation literature presumes that shareholders offer risk-averse managers stock options to entice them to take on more risk, resulting in riskier investment decisions and thus a greater return on investment. However, recent empirical work challenges this assumption, and...