Enron's collapse is generally viewed as a morality tale - the natural result of managerial greed, a clueless board, and feckless gatekeepers. But none of these aspects of the story clearly distinguishes Enron from other major firms during the bubble era of the late 90s. This material identifies...

I address the interaction between accounting conservatism and real options in both a staged investment and abandonment model. An accounting policy biased towards classifying a Good (Bad) project as Bad (Good) is conservative (aggressive). The accounting signal is optimally conservative when the...

This paper examines how one aspect of earnings quality - discretionary accruals - affects subsequent capital investment pattern and efficiency. We find that, conditional on investment opportunities, investment in fixed assets in period t is less sensitive to internal cash flows for firms with...

Using a large sample of U.S. firms for the period 2005–2017, we provide evidence that real earnings management activities contribute to corporate cybersecurity risk. Specifically, we show that abnormal cuts in discretionary expenditures, our proxy for real earnings management, are positively...

Recent theoretical and empirical studies suggest that blockholders (shareholders with ownership ≥ 5%) exert governance through the threat of exit. Blockholders have strong incentives to gather private information and sell their shares when managers are perceived to underperform. To prevent...

This paper studies how the investment horizon of institutional investors affects firms' earnings management strategies. We find that firms largely held by long-term investors are more likely to manage earnings through adjusting operational decisions than through manipulating accruals. The impact...

This paper studies how the investment horizon of institutional investors affects firms' earnings management strategies. We find that firms with long-term investors are more likely to manage earnings through real activities manipulation than through accruals. The impact of the investor trading...

We examine how compensation of chief executive officer (CEO) and corporate governance practices affect earnings management behavior in an emerging economy, Pakistan. Using 1836 firm-year observations from 260 firms listed in KSE for period 2005 to 2012, we do not find that CEO compensation has...

We use highly granular computational linguistics to assess the MD&A section of the 10-K as a whole. Our results show that the content of MD&A can be systematically used to explain the valuation of firms, particularly those undergoing business change, where the value relevance of financial...

We assess the role of both accruals manipulation (AM) and real activities manipulation (RAM) in inducing overvaluation at the time of a seasoned equity offering (SEO). Our results reveal that earnings management is most consistently and predictably linked with post-SEO stock market...