A company officer is an "alumnus" if he previously worked for an audit firm. Iyer et al. (1997) find alumni have ties with their former audit firms and alumni are more inclined to provide economic benefits to former firms if they have stronger ties. If the alumnus is a senior corporate officer,...

We investigate firms that stop providing earnings guidance (stoppers) either by publicly announcing their decision (announcers) or doing so quietly (quiet stoppers). Relative to firms that continue guiding, stoppers have poorer prior performance, more uncertain operating environments, and fewer...

We examine the sophistication of analysts' cash flow forecasts to better understand what accrual adjustments, if any, analysts make when forecasting cash flows. As a preliminary step, we first demonstrate that prior empirical tests used to evaluate the sophistication of analysts' cash flow...

We investigate the impact of founding family ownership on accounting conservatism. Family ownership is characterized by large, under-diversified equity stake and long investment horizon. These features give family owners both the incentives and the ability to implement conservative financial...