Under fairly general assumptions, expected stock returns are a linear combination of two accounting fundamentals ― book to market and ROE. Empirical estimates based on this relation predict the cross section of out-of-sample returns in 26 of 29 international equity markets, with a highly...

Standard equity valuation approaches (i.e., DDM, RIM, and DCF model) are derived under the assumption of ideal conditions, such as infinite payoffs and clean surplus accounting. Because these conditions are hardly ever met, we extend the standard approaches, based on the fundamental principle of...

We analyze the effect of alternative data on the informativeness of financial forecasts. Our hypothesis is that the emergence of alternative data increases the net benefit of collecting short-term information about firms' cash flows more than the benefit of collecting long-term information. If...

We develop a measure of how information events impact investors' perceptions of risk that is broadly applicable and simple to implement. We derive this measure from an option-pricing model where investors anticipate an announcement that simultaneously conveys information on the announcer's...

We examine whether option prices correct for predictable bias in stock prices associated with accounting anomalies. Evidence from put-call parity violations suggests that they do not. Rather, option prices accurately track contemporaneous stock prices. Further analysis suggests that high costs...

Using a large sample of business groups from more than one hundred countries around the world, we show that group information matters for parent and subsidiary default prediction. Group firms may support each other when in financial distress. Potential group support represents an off-balance...

We study how the quality of investors' information across horizons influences investment. In our theory, managers care about how investment is impounded in current stock prices. Because prices imperfectly reflect investment’s value, they under-invest. However, they under-invest less when...

We document an improvement in analysts’ forecast accuracy following increased sector ETF ownership. We identify a possible channel for this result, i.e., because ETFs are more informative with respect to industry-level information, analysts learn directly and efficiently from ETFs about this...

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...