Recent studies have questioned the validity of the Basu asymmetric timeliness of earnings (AT) as the proxy for accounting conservatism. An important basis for the criticism is the negative association observed between AT and market-to-book ratio (MB), another proxy for conservatism. Drawing...

This study investigates the effect of a security regulation that occurs concomitantly with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on the information content of earnings announcements in Italy. To identify the effect of this regulation, we use a treatment (i.e., Italy) and a...

Dual-listed firms simultaneously follow the relevant rules in their home country and in their cross-listed country. In contrast, other firms only listed in the cross-listed country are only subject to the local regulations. Previous literature has found evidence that cross-listing can improve...

The stock characteristics often used in securities litigation to assess market efficiency are dispositive indicators of reactivity to earnings announcements. Stocks with large capitalization, high trading volume, broad analyst coverage, a large number of market makers, and narrow bid-ask spread...

Analysts' functions are divided into discovery and interpretation roles, but separating between the two is non-trivial. We conjecture that analysts' interpretation skill can be gauged by their forecast revisions following material unanticipated news — in particular following non-earnings 8-K...

We examine the effect of litigation risk on management's decision to issue earnings forecasts. We use a new ex ante measure of litigation risk, namely, the Directors and Officers liability insurance premium. This measure bypasses significant problems associated with the estimation of ex ante...

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 how heterogeneity in organizational structure affects private firm earnings quality in the European Union. Organizational structure refers to whether the firm is organized as a single legal entity (standalone) or as a business group: the former are firms not controlling or controlled...

We examine the consequences of a management earnings forecast regulation implemented in a staggered manner. The regulation substantially increases the directly affected firms' frequency of management forecasts. Nevertheless, approximately 14% of the directly affected firms fail to comply with...

This monograph is not a review of the empirical accounting literature. This monograph tells a story and relates it to salient empirical phenomena. Why does accounting exist? Our answer is that financial accounting helps firms function efficiently. That efficiency is manifested in many ways, and...