Earnings management is a corporate decision subject to costs. Both earnings management in the IPO process and the ex ante delisting risk of newly issued firms are related to firm fundamentals. With a sample of IPOs from 1980 to 1999, we find that the degree of earnings management possesses...

We examine the effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on the extent of aggressive/conservative reporting behavior of public companies. SOX imposes considerably greater potential penalties on CEO/CFOs who engage in financial wrongdoing; therefore, risk averse managers are likely to report lower...

In this paper we investigate the relation between audit committee quality, auditor independence, and the disclosure of internal control weaknesses after the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We begin with a sample of firms with internal control weaknesses and, based on industry, size, and...

In this paper, we study a broad sample of Andersen clients and investigate whether the decline in Andersen's reputation, due to its criminal indictment on March 14, 2002, adversely impacted the market's perception of its audit quality. Because these reputational concerns are more of an issue if...

In this paper, we study a comprehensive sample of Andersen clients and investigate whether the deterioration of Andersen's reputation after its criminal indictment on March 14, 2002 adversely impacted the perceived credibility of their audit quality. Since these reputational concerns are more of...

On June 27, 2002, the SEC ordered the CEOs and CFOs of public companies with revenues during their last fiscal year of greater than $1.2 billion to file written statements, under oath, regarding the accuracy of their companies' financial statements. The SEC's order required the sworn statements...

This study investigates whether financial analysts correctly weight cash flows, accruals and components of accruals in forecasting future earnings. This examination is in the spirit of Sloan (1996) who documents evidence that investors do not correctly distinguish between the cash flow and...

This paper documents for the first time the relationship between mutual fund governance and mutual fund performance. Using the first release of the Morningstar Stewardship Grades on August 24, 2004, we find that funds receiving good grades outperformed funds with bad grades by 19 to 23 basis...

The scandals surrounding questionable accounting practices and corporate wrongdoing during 2000-2008 have often been attributed to the lack of effective internal controls. We examine the relations between national culture and the incidence and the number of reported internal control material...

We investigate the relationship between underwriter reputation and earnings management of IPO firms over the period of 1991-2005. We find that IPO firms engage in less earnings management if they are underwritten by prestigious investment bankers. Furthermore, the role of prestigious...