The SEC's emphasis on the use of plain English is designed to make disclosures more readable and more informative. Using an experiment, I find that more readable disclosures lead to stronger reactions from small investors, so that changes in valuation judgments are more positive when news is...

This study analyzes whether the tone of financial disclosures affects corporate investments, using texts released by firms that publicly announce restatements of their financial reports. We argue that the tone of restatement texts provides news about restating firms' private information...

We provide a bridge between the voluntary disclosure and the earnings management literature. Voluntary disclosure models focus on managers' discretion in deciding whether or not to provide truthful voluntary disclosure to the capital market. Earnings management models, on the other hand,...

This paper examines how the quality of firm information disclosure affects shareholders' use of dividends to mitigate agency problems. Managerial compensation is linked to firm value. However, because the manager and shareholders are asymmetrically informed, the manager can manipulate the firm's...

Financial economics has traditionally posited a limited role for idiosyncratic noneconomic manager-specific influences, but the strategic management literature suggests such individual influences can affect corporate outcomes. We investigate whether individual managers play an economically...

We examine the relation between internal control quality and the accuracy of management guidance. Consistent with managers in firms with ineffective internal controls relying on erroneous internal management reports when forming guidance, we document less accurate guidance among firms reporting...

Early empirical studies find a negative association between firm performance and shareholder activism, whereas more recent studies document a positive association. We argue and theoretically show that this change in behavior results from mandating executive compensation disclosure. We develop a...

This paper examines the disclosure of intangible assets by 'high user' industrial firms in the Australian market subsequent to the introduction in 2005 of AASB 136 and AASB 138. Using a sample of ten large industrial firms with combined intangible assets of $37,758 million as at 2006, the paper...

We examine whether the complexity of mandatory accounting disclosures prompts managers to voluntarily disclose adjusted measures of actual earnings performance. We also explore whether this disclosure practice reflects attempts to obfuscate or to mitigate informational problems arising from...

Purpose: Based on signal theory and legitimacy theory, this paper examines whether firms with financial reporting misstatements (restatements) would prefer conservative financial reporting to send signals regarding their determinants of improving financial reporting credibility and legitimate...