This report updates and expands earlier studies to look at the profitability of $349.7 billion of buybacks executed from 2000 through early 2010 by a sample of 275 corporations. The sample companies, drawn mainly from the technology sector, enjoy total equity market value today of $945.6...

This report expands through early 2011 studies of the raw performance (profitability) of $383.5 billion of buybacks executed since 2000 by a sample of 252 corporations. The sample companies, drawn mainly from the technology sector, enjoy total equity market value today of $1.240 trillion. 69.8%...

This paper studies the effects of interlocked boards of directors on voluntary disclosures, governance practices and earnings quality. The Canadian environment, where director interlocks are prevalent, is examined. A checklist of twenty voluntary disclosure measures from proxy statements is...

This paper investigates whether the desire to achieve higher equity valuations induces conglomerates to manipulate their segment earnings. I extend the Stein (1989) model to a multi-segment setting and show that conglomerates have incentives to transfer profits from segments operating in...

Previous studies of the impact of M&A on performance have employed a range of measures of “profitability” or “rate of return”. Sometimes they have provided little in the way of rationalization; and sometimes the most appropriate measures have not been deployed for testing the chosen...

This paper investigates the use of earnings management by cooperatives to avoid reporting losses or earnings decreases. Based on a unique dataset comprising quarterly financial statements reported by 66 Brazilian agricultural cooperatives between 2000 and 2015, our results show that cooperatives...

“Modern” accounting adheres to 15th century conventions in maintaining that corporate stock repurchases never result in a profit or loss for a firm. In actual practice, however, few purely financial decisions rival stock repurchases in their bearing on the well-being of shareholders. Because...

Based on a unique arrangement of trading and disclosure times around earnings announcements in the Chinese stock market, we provide evidence of a striking overnight-intraday disparity in terms of the reaction to earnings news. Specifically, we find that the overnight period exhibits a strong and...

We analyze management's emphasis (i.e., prominence, frequency, and textual highlighting) of GAAP metrics within the narrative portion of earnings announcement press releases; we assess whether management uses emphasis opportunistically, informatively, or both. We find that management emphasizes...

Despite the prevalence of IR among firms and its role as the functional area dedicated to financial communications, we know little about the relationship between IR and financial reporting quality. This paper examines the earnings management choices of firms with a professional IR presence. I...