The overall market for derivative securities is often estimated as more than ten times the World's GDP and many decry the complexity of derivatives as a main contributor to the subprime financial crisis. In this paper, we investigate whether and why complexity is used as a proxy for risk when...

This study investigates whether audit market competition influences the risk profile of audit offices' client portfolios and whether an audit office's client risk profile affects the association between audit market competition and audit quality. Economic theory suggests that market competition...

In a perfect world, a manager's investment in fixed assets would increase with the assets' profitability. However, when managers privately know their project profitability and care about their company's short-term share price, managers of less profitable firms face the temptation to overinvest...

In their implementation of Basel III, U.S. bank regulators are again including changes in the fair value of available-for-sale (AFS) debt securities in Tier 1 capital, but only for the largest U.S. banks. This paper investigates a potential impact of expanding this regulation by examining bank...

Using aggregate data from national accounts, we study whether strengthening and harmonizing securities regulation across the European Union increases household equity ownership. We find a significant increase in the proportion of liquid assets invested in equity, both when a household's own...

Debates persist among academics, regulators, practitioners, and standard setters regarding the extent to which different asset measurement methods aid investment decisions. Surprisingly, evidence of actual resource providers’ views on this issue is sparse. We survey 528 and interview 13...

Deferred income taxation is widely used to encourage investment or saving. However, most income tax bases are more or less distortive (non-neutral). Using lab experiments, we find that the deferral of a distortive income taxation can result in substantial overproduction and less willingness to...