Consistent with prior studies, this study shows that extremely negative and extremely positive earnings surprises in the fourth quarter have lower levels of persistence than those in the first through third fiscal quarters. Furthermore, extremely negative earnings surprises in the fourth fiscal...

Manipulation of earnings or analyst earnings expectations is costly to firms. Manipulators of earnings and/or analyst earnings expectations therefore are likely to report earnings that precisely meet or narrowly beat analyst earnings forecasts, resulting in a zero or small positive earnings...

Hirshleifer et al. (2004) argue that scaled Net Operating Assets (NOA) measures the extent to which operating/reporting outcomes provoke excessive investor optimism. In this paper, I argue that at least part of the information conveyed by NOA is industry common and cannot be diversified when...

This paper proposes a risk-based explanation for the accrual anomaly. Risk is measured using a four-factor model motivated by the Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model. Tests of the model suggest that a considerable portion of the cross-sectional variation in average returns to high and low...

We argue that high accruals are likely to be the outcome of rules with an income statement perspective, while low accruals are likely to be the outcome of rules with a balance sheet perspective and that this has implications for the properties of earnings. Specifically, earnings persistence is...

This study investigates whether glamour companies have higher effective tax rates than value companies. Glamour companies are defined using a Lakonishok et al. (1994) definition as companies that have a high price-to-earnings ratio and high sales growth. Conversely, value companies have a low...

This paper studies market liquidity and stock prices components of information asymmetry around non-mandated earnings announcements by focusing on effective bid-ask spreads and trading volumes. Using event study methodology for 309 voluntary earnings announcements from 1998 to 2001, we found...

Numerous accounting studies conduct tests of the market pricing of accounting information. The purpose of this study is to both highlight and quantify the consequences of using of ex-post information to form trading strategies based on accounting numbers and to document the importance of...

This paper examines the relative value-relevance of both earnings and book value in the presence of three alternative sources of earnings management: short-term discretionary accruals, long-term discretionary accruals, and total discretionary accruals. For firm's whose discretionary accruals...

Given the recent controversy over deviations of street earnings from GAAP earnings, we show that the nonrecurring items that analysts include in street earnings are more persistent and have higher valuation multiples than those items they exclude from street earnings. In addition, we find no...