This paper proposes a principal-agent model of moral hazard and adverse selection that introduces the notion of screening, which is distinct from sorting; and distinguishes between ability that is privately known by the agent versus general ability that is observable by the principal and market....

This paper proposes a principal-agent model of moral hazard and adverse selection that introduces the notion of screening, which is distinct from sorting; and distinguishes between ability that is privately known by the agent versus general ability that is observable by the principal and market....

Almost 30 years after the introduction of the CIO position, the ideal CIO reporting structure (whether the CIO should report to the CEO or the CFO) is yet to be prescribed. There is an intuitive assumption among some proponents of IT that the CIO should always report to the CEO to promote the...

Earnings management research often uses discretionary accruals from Jones-type models. These models assume a linear relation between sales changes and accruals. However, we predict and find that sales changes have a non-linear asymmetric effect on accruals through managers' operating decisions....

We analyze the expected value of information about an agent's type in the presence of moral hazard and adverse selection. Information about the agent's type enables the principal to sort/screen agents of different types. The value of the information decreases in the variability of output and the...

We examine the relation between demand uncertainty and firms' production outsourcing decisions. Contrary to the traditional view on make-or-buy decisions in management accounting textbooks, we predict that demand uncertainty deters outsourcing by a manufacturer from a supplier. Building on...

Sales decreases affect earnings more than sales increases because of cost stickiness. We hypothesize that this correlated omitted variable constitutes a confounding effect in standard asymmetric timeliness models. Adding sales change direction to the Basu (1997) and Ball et al. (2013b) models...

This paper examines the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in enhancing the well-being of nations. Extending research on the role of ICT in the productivity of nations, we posit that the effects of ICT may not be limited to productivity (e.g., GDP), and we argue that the use...

Accountants examine multiple indicators when assessing whether individual assets are impaired. Different indicators predict cash flows over varying time horizons, and their importance varies with how far into the future individual assets are expected to generate cash flows. We predict that...

Sales decreases affect earnings more than sales increases because of cost stickiness. We hypothesize that this correlated omitted variable constitutes a confounding effect in standard asymmetric timeliness models. Controlling for a piecewise linear effect of sales changes in these models...