We revisit evidence whether incentives or IFRS drive earnings quality changes, analyzing a large sample of German firms in the period from 1998 to 2008. Consistent with previous studies we find that voluntary and mandatory adopters differ distinctively in terms of essential firm characteristics...

Mispricing and risk have both been suggested as explanations for the cross-sectional relation between stock returns and firm characteristics such as accruals. As emphasized by Ferson and Harvey (1998) and Berk, Green and Naik (1999), it is difficult to evaluate these competing explanations...

Activist short-sellers could play an information role in capital markets by disclosing informative short-theses, or, as many are concerned, a manipulation role by spreading misinformation. To shed light on this controversy, this paper focuses on a powerful setting where both roles are heightened...

We ask whether the quality of internal information matters for investment decisions. We predict that investment is more sensitive to internal profit signals and less sensitive to external price signals when managers have higher quality internal information. Consistent with recent theoretical and...

In the model there are two types of financial auditors with identical technology, one of which is endowed with a prior reputation for honesty. We characterize conditions under which there exists a “two-tier equilibrium” in which “reputable” auditors refuse bribes offered by clients for...

In their joint framework project, the FASB and the IASB recently proposed dropping stewardship as a separate objective of financial accounting, because the Boards view stewardship and valuation usefulness as compatible sub-objectives ranking under an overall objective of decision usefulness....

This paper studies the role of voluntary disclosure in crowding out independent research about firm value. In the model, when inside firm owners make it easier for outside investors to obtain inexpensive biased information from the manager, investors rely less on costly unbiased research. As a...

Firms often change their operating policy to meet a short-term financial reporting target. Accounting researchers call such an opportunistic action real earnings management (REM). They measure REM by the difference between a firm's costs and those reported by its industry peers. Firms that...

I examine whether political influence as a response to voters' interest in employment levels is reflected in the enforcement actions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I find that large employers are less likely to experience SEC enforcement actions. Next, I examine whether...

This study examines how key market participants — managers and analysts — responded to SFAS 123R's controversial requirement that firms recognize stock-based compensation expense. Despite mandated recognition of the expense, some firms' managers exclude it from pro forma earnings and some...