This paper provides evidence that insiders possess, and trade upon, knowledge of specific and economically-significant forthcoming accounting disclosures as long as two years prior to the disclosure. Stock sales by insiders increase three to nine quarters prior to a break in a string of...

This study compares samples of publicly and privately held bank holding companies to examine whether the high frequency of small earnings increases relative to small earnings decreases reported by public firms is attributable to earnings management. We expect public banks' shareholders to be...

In this paper we investigate the relation between CEO compensation and accounting performance measures in a sample of publicly- and privately-held property-liability insurance companies. We find a significant positive association between return on assets and the level of compensation for...

We assess accuracy and bias in the accounting estimate of outstanding claim losses reported in the audited statutory financial statements of 197 property-casualty insurers during 1979-1983. Our analysis shows that claim loss estimation errors exceed materiality in over 90% of our sample. For...

A major governance problem in closely-held corporations arising from the illiquidity of shares is the majority shareholders' expropriation of minority shareholders. As a solution, legal and finance research recommends that the main shareholder surrender some control to minority shareholders via...

The objective of this paper is to cohesively introduce the notion of natural optimism into the accounting literature and to provide insights into the role of natural optimism in financial reporting on the part of firm managers. To accomplish this, we first discuss the research that demonstrates...

This paper assesses whether insurers' state taxes reduce purchases of property-casualty coverage. Tests are conducted using state aggregates of insurer-level data from publicly-available, annual accounting reports for 1993, 1994, and 1995. A positive relation between self-insurance and state...

We hypothesize that, in their annual accounting reports, insurers allocate premiums and losses from multistate policies to reduce total state taxes. To test this prediction, we examine firm-level data, collected from the publicly-available statutory reports used to compute tax bases and filed...

We hypothesize that, in their annual accounting reports, insurers allocate premiums and losses from multistate policies to reduce total state taxes. To test this prediction, we examine firm-level data, collected from the publicly-available statutory reports used to compute tax bases and filed...

This study analyzes the relation between fair values of equity and fixed maturity debt securities and future cash flows of property-liability insurance companies. We find that fair values of equity investments U.S. Government bonds and municipal bonds are explained by future cash flows to these...