This study examines the main problem raised by pro forma earnings (or “street” earnings) because investors may have trouble focusing their attention when they are relying on this information to make decisions about investing in French publicly traded securities.This article, based on 116 pro...

We study whether mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is associated with changes in the sensitivity of CEO turnover to accounting earnings and how the impact of IFRS adoption varies with country-level institutions and firm-level incentives. We find that CEO...

This article analyses the eighteenth-century accounting practices of the Japanese trading station or factory of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie or VOC). The factory's trade and its reported profits declined during the eighteenth century, but because of the...

Financial analysts comprise one important group of information intermediaries between firms and investors (Healy & Palepu, 2001). They have great potential to decrease information asymmetry between firms and investors, resulting in better allocation of capital. Analysts' work is influenced by,...

The association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of reported earnings is examined for a large sample of firms from 42 countries. Three attributes of earnings are evaluated: the magnitude of the association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of...

We examine the association between goodwill impairment charges and analysts' forecast accuracy and dispersion. We compare firm-quarters that report periodic goodwill impairment charges during 2003-2007, and two control samples (matched on propensity scores and performance) of firm-quarters that...

We examine whether management earnings forecast errors exhibit serial correlation and how analysts understand the serial correlation property of management forecast errors. Management forecast errors should not exhibit serial correlation if managers efficiently process information in prior...

There is reliable evidence that managers smooth their reported earnings. If some firms manage earnings downwards (upwards) when they experience large positive (negative) earnings shocks and if investors have cognitive limits or are inattentive, then it is plausible that the post-earnings...

This paper examines how the characteristics of accounting systems and management incentives interact and collectively determine financial reporting quality. We develop a rational expectations equilibrium model that features a steady-state firm with investments, financial and non-financial...

This paper examines the effect of income smoothing on information uncertainty, stock returns, and cost of equity. I show that income smoothing through both total accruals and discretionary accruals tends to reduce firms' information uncertainty, as measured by stock return volatility, analyst...