Prior evidence suggests that managers and investors play an earnings game in which managers bias their earnings forecasts downward as the earnings announcement date approaches. Knowing managers' incentives to provide biased guidance, investors still revise their expectations downward helping to...

This study examines whether factors that influence firms' overall investment strategies also influence the decision to invest in a tax shelter. Our results suggest that firms with large investment opportunity sets are less likely to invest in tax shelters. We also find that firms with greater...

Firms with greater product market power have more slack in their decision making because they are able to, at least partially, insulate their cash flows and earnings realizations from shocks to their economic state relative to other firms. Using the period 1993 through 2010, and multiple proxies...

Product market power provides firms with comparative advantages through more persistent profitability and insulation from competitive threats. These advantages likely provide firms with the ability to engage in greater tax avoidance. We present evidence consistent with this hypothesis. We also...

In this study, we examine the effect of accrual-based earnings management on the association between managers' earnings forecast errors and accruals, which we label “managers' accrual-related forecast bias.” We build on extensive research which finds that managers engage in accrual-based...

Prior research documents substantial variation in firms' tax avoidance activities and questions why some firms choose not to take advantage of the apparent benefits of tax planning (i.e., the "undersheltering puzzle"). We provide additional insight into the undersheltering puzzle by...