We posit and find that the importance of analyst and forecast characteristics for analyst forecast accuracy varies with analysts' access to management's private information and with the precision of publicly available information. In particular, more experienced analysts and All-Star analysts do...

We investigate whether “passive” index-tracking institutional investors (index investors) impact the aggregation of their investee firms’ geographic disclosures. We find that when index investors own more of their stock, U.S. multinationals tend to reduce transparency about foreign...

In this study, we explore the association between company reputation and the likelihood of a financial statement restatement (i.e., a revealed misstatement). We focus on restatements because they are one of the most visible forms of impaired financial reporting quality, and we suggest that...

Accounting rules for valuing retained interest from securitizations require management to make assumptions concerning discount rates, default rates, and prepayment rates. These assumptions provide management with discretion to determine the “gain on sale” of the receivables. We investigate...

In this study, we investigate whether companies with better reputations enjoy a lower cost of equity financing. Using a sample of 9,276 large U.S. companies from 1987 through 2011 and the reputation rankings from Fortune's “America's Most Admired Companies List”, we find strong evidence that...

Using 18,253 firm-year observations from 1998 through 2003, we build on literature suggesting that more informative disclosures allow returns to better reflect future earnings, and test whether management earnings per share forecasts and their characteristics influence the future earnings...

We examine whether three tax system characteristics – required book-tax conformity, worldwide versus territorial approach, and perceived strength of enforcement – impact corporate tax avoidance across countries after controlling for firm-specific factors previously shown to be associated...

We re-examine the widely held belief that analysts' earnings per share (EPS) forecasts are superior to random walk (RW) time-series forecasts. We investigate whether analysts' annual EPS forecasts are superior, and if so, under what conditions. Simple RW EPS forecasts are more accurate than...

We contribute to the debate about the relative benefits and costs of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption by examining whether earnings persistence and the association between current accounting earnings and future cash flows differ for firms reporting under IFRS versus...