We examine the influence of common ownership on commonalities in the information environment. Specifically, we study commonalities in financial statements and in the actions of key agents such as financial analysts and firm managers who contribute and respond to the information environment....

There is significant disagreement about whether, when and why IPO firms manage earnings. We contribute to the literature by precisely identifying the timing and motives behind earnings management by IPO firms. We emphasize that the period around IPO is characterized by two distinct events: the...

In this paper, we rely on an exogenous shock to examine the impact of litigation risk on real earnings management (REM). We conduct differences-in-differences tests centered on an unanticipated court ruling that reduced litigation risk for firms headquartered in the Ninth Circuit. REM increases...

If the differences in accounting standards across countries reflect relatively stable institutional differences, why did several countries rapidly adopt IFRS in the 2003-2008 period? We test the hypothesis that perceived network benefits from the extant worldwide adoption of IFRS can explain...

We propose that the value of the earnings reporting process as an information source lies in limiting delays in the release of bad news either by inducing managers to disclose it voluntarily, or by directly releasing the negative news that managers have incentives to withhold. We compare...

I examine the impact of exogenous changes in stock prices on voluntary disclosure. Specifically, I investigate whether stock price declines prompt managers to voluntarily disclose firm-value-related information (management forecasts) that was withheld prior to the decline because it was...