We investigate the association between financial restatements and internal controls by examining whether voluntary restatement decisions are associated with internal control quality. We focus on companies’ voluntary restatements because they are more susceptible to the numerous provisions...

In this paper, we re-evaluate the hypothesis that the introduction of the IFRS has an impact on the timeliness of loss recognition. We test this hypothesis in a data set of public German firms that report according to German-GAAP and IFRS, respectively. The parallel use of the two accounting...

We analyze a comprehensive sample of more than 10,000 U.S. stocks in the OTC market. As little is known about this market, we first characterize OTC firms by trading venue and provide evidence on survival, success, frequency of venue changes, reporting status, and trading activity. A large...

In recent years, reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) became mandatory in many countries. The capital-market effects around this change have been extensively studied, but their sources are not yet well understood. This study aims to distinguish between several...

We study the restructuring process of small and medium-sized firms in financial distress. We have a unique dataset with firms in the Netherlands that are guided in their restructuring effort by banks. Part of our dataset consists of firms that successfully restructure their operations and...

Survey evidence suggests that managers voluntarily disclose information, particularly earnings guidance, with an aim toward dampening share price volatility. Yet, consultants and influential institutions advise against providing guidance citing fears of litigation and market penalties associated...

Today's most pressing constitutional question is posed by a global economic system whose expansive tendencies seem no longer controllable. The current financial/debt crisis has triggered diverse reactions in the political arena ranging from the reformist ordo-liberal approach followed by France...

We examine which independent directors are held accountable when investors sue firms for financial and disclosure-related fraud. Investors can name independent directors as defendants in lawsuits, and they can vote against their reelection to express displeasure over the directors’...

This paper formalizes a two-step representation of accounting measurement and uses it to formalize a general rationale for conservatism as a measurement principle. A transaction's economic substance manifests itself in characteristics of the transaction, and an accounting rule is a mapping from...

We examine the influence of auditors on mitigating corporate fraud in China, which is known to have weak legal enforcement, weak investor protection along with tight control of the media and labour unions. We find that firms with executives that have lower integrity, indicated by a greater...