SFAS 109 allows firms to use their discretion to set arbitrarily high valuation allowances against deferred tax assets. Firms can then later use these quot;hidden reservesquot; to manage earnings. Our evidence indicates that most banks do not record a valuation allowance to manage earnings, but...

In this paper we examine how the realizations of securities gains and losses by banks owned by an interstate multibank holding company are related to the tax, earnings, and capital management objectives of the consolidated group and of the individual subsidiaries. We find that while subsidiary...

Recent research reports that book-tax differences are not only informative about future earnings but are also associated with future stock returns. The combination of these results suggests the possibility that investors misprice securities by not fully incorporating tax-based information into...

This study examines whether managerial forecasts of annual effective tax rates, disclosed in interim financial statements, are useful in predicting future quarterly earnings, are incorporated in financial analysts' forecasts of quarterly earnings, or are impounded in stock prices. The integral...

Mispricing and risk have both been suggested as explanations for the cross-sectional relation between stock returns and firm characteristics such as accruals. As emphasized by Ferson and Harvey (1998) and Berk, Green and Naik (1999), it is difficult to evaluate these competing explanations...

Our paper explores whether reducing management discretion in the reporting of performance is value relevant to capital markets. The study is driven by concerns raised by standard setters and others about the usefulness of performance reporting under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles...

In this study I examine how the degree and duration of overvaluation affect management's use of alternative within-GAAP earnings management, restrictions on further exploitation of within-GAAP accruals management, and subsequent non-GAAP earnings management. Further, I examine how one type of...

We examine the effect of earnings surprises on changes in information asymmetry. We hypothesize and find that asymmetry is lower (higher) in the quarter following positive (negative) earnings surprises compared to firms that meet the consensus analyst earnings forecast. The relations between...

Flotation costs represent a significant loss of capital to firms and are positively related to information asymmetry between managers and outside investors. We measure a firm's information asymmetry by its accounting information quality based on two extensions of the Dechow and Dichev earnings...

Controlling for firm-specific characteristics determining financial reporting quality, this paper finds evidence of a negative association between firms' total risk and financial reporting quality. While the results imply that firms providing financial information of higher quality do not...