This study examines how investors respond to firm disclosure practices that deviate from the majority of industry peers (i.e., industry norms). The SEC has made repeated calls for the disclosure of foreign cash in order for investors to have more information in determining firms' liquidity...

This paper proposes a novel theoretical framework to study the features of mass purges in authoritarian regimes. We contend that mass purges are an instrument of top-down accountability meant to motivate and screen a multitude of agents (e.g., single-party members, state bureaucrats). We show...

We predict that a firm's greater accounting comparability with its industry peers facilitates its learning from those peer firms' research and development (R&D) investments, allowing that firm to have greater innovative efficiency. We estimate accounting comparability using pro-forma capitalized...

Accounting measurement and disclosure rules have a significant impact on the real decisions that firms make. In this essay, we provide an analytical framework to illustrate how such real effects arise. Using this framework, we examine three specific measurement issues that remain controversial:...

I provide evidence that loan loss accounting affects procyclical lending through its impact on regulatory actions. Regulators are more likely to place banks with inadequate loan loss allowances under enforcement actions that restrict lending, leading these banks to lend less during downturns....

We study how biases in financial reporting affect managers' incentives to develop innovative projects and to make appropriate investment decisions. Conservative reporting practices impose stricter verification standards for recognizing good news, and reduce the chance that risky innovations will...

Prior literature is mixed as to whether smoothing through accruals indicates higher or lower financial reporting quality (Tucker and Zarowin 2006; Jayaraman 2008; Dechow et al. 2010). Motivated by the unique inter-temporal features and reporting incentives of tax expense, we provide new evidence on this...

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Form PF is the implementation of Congress's post-crisis mandate for risk reporting by hedge funds to help protect investors and monitor systemic risk. We extend the methodology of Flood, Monin, and Bandyopadhyay [2015] to assess the risk measurement...

We construct a new, parsimonious, measure of disclosure quality — disaggregation quality (DQ) — and offer validation tests. DQ captures the level of disaggregation of accounting data through a count of nonmissing Compustat line items, and reflects the extent of details in firms' annual...

I explore the institutionalization process of an environmental management accounting tool in France. Based on the concept of institutional work, I analyze the role of the French elite in institutionalizing life cycle assessment in France and its consequences. Who are the most influential...