Dynamics of credit markets impact almost all participants in financial markets. Yet, despite rapidly growing international credit markets, we know little about the dynamics of global credit markets, as most studies focus on the US. Here, I propose a new distance-to-default model, empirically...

We review here theory and evidence relating to herd behavior, payoff and reputational interactions, social learning, and informational cascades in capital markets. We offer a simple taxonomy of effects, and evaluate how alternative theories may help explain evidence on the behavior of investors,...

This study provides comparative tests for the decision usefulness of four accounting alternatives for emission rights. In current accounting practice, cost-based net approaches as well as cost- and market-based gross approaches coexist. Modelling the available accounting treatments as reporting...

This paper simultaneously examines, for the first time, the determinants of external audit fees of UK companies drawn from the quoted sector (Main Market, the Alternative Investment Market and Ofex), and the unquoted sector (public and private limited companies). The paper also provides new...

We investigate three prominent German bank failures in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, IKB Deutsche Industriebank, Landesbank Sachsen, and Hypo Real Estate (HRE). The cases provide a unique setting to analyze the interrelation between financial reporting, regulation, and financial stability....

High quality disclosures can promote investor confidence and facilitate capital market development, but evidence on market-level consequences of confidence associated with disclosures is sparse. Using a survey-based measure that directly captures beliefs about disclosure quality in a panel with...

Using a survey-based measure that directly captures beliefs about disclosure quality (SFARS) in a panel with over 1,000 country-year observations, this study examines macro-level capital market consequences of confidence in disclosure quality. Supporting construct validity, SFARS is associated...

We show that, contrary to popular belief, capital markets do not drive short-termism. By comparing public and private European firms in countries with different institutional infrastructures, we show that being listed in the stock market plays a positive role in a firm’s investment policies,...

This report provides a review of the academic literature relevant to the mandatory adoption of IFRS reporting for member countries of the European Union in 2005 and an empirical analysis of the associated capital-market effects. In the empirical analysis, we focus on the effects on firms' costs...

This paper, following McGoun's (1997) seminal article comparing the economy of financial securities to a hyperreal poker game, argues that finance and accounting researchers should take the “linguistic turn” that has rejuvenated theory and research in many, if not most, of the social science...