Proponents of IFRS argue that mandating a uniform set of accounting standards improves financial statement comparability that in turn attracts greater cross-border investment. We test this assertion by examining changes in foreign mutual fund investment in firms following mandatory IFRS adoption...

We find no evidence that non-audit service fees impair auditor independence, where independence is surrogated by auditors' propensity to issue going concern audit opinions. We do find, however, that auditors are more likely to issue going concern opinions to clients paying higher audit fees,...

We investigate a pervasive voluntary disclosure practice -- managers including balance sheets with quarterly earnings announcements. Consistent with expectations, we find that managers voluntarily disclose balance sheets when current earnings are relatively less informative, or when future...

We find a significant decline in average corporate bondholder value around events leading up to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), but only among bonds issued by firms that are expected to experience relatively large governance changes under SOX. Further, we do not find evidence that...

We test whether mandatory IFRS adoption affects firm-level ‘crash risk,' defined as the frequency of extreme negative stock returns. We separately analyze non-financial firms and financial firms because IFRS is likely to affect their crash risk differently. We find that IFRS adoption decreases...

Recent research asserts that an essential feature of good corporate governance is strong investor protection, where investor protection is defined as the extent of the "laws" that protect investors' rights and the strength of the legal institutions that facilitate "law enforcement". The purpose...

We examine three-day cumulative abnormal returns around the announcement of 702 newly appointed outside directors assigned to audit committees during a period before implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Motivated by the SOX requirement that public companies disclose whether they have...