I develop an ex-post conservativism measure (that identifies conservatism based on whether firms understate or overstate earnings) rather than an ex-ante conservatism measure (that suffices as a governance mechanism [such as conservative accounting rules] to compel managers to be conservative)....

This PowerPoint deck is used in the classroom to provide a broadly useful framework for value creation. The theme is that we are better equipped to deal with value creation by first gaining insights into how we build knowledge. Part 1 discusses core beliefs critical to a sharpened worldview that...

Standard setters contend fair value accounting yields the most relevant measurement for financial instruments. We examine this claim by comparing the value relevance of banks' financial statements under fair value accounting with that under current GAAP, which is largely based on historical...

Long-term value creation begins with clarity about the purpose of the firm and about management's core responsibilities. Value creation is critically tied to how well management develops and maintains a knowledge-building culture. These ideas are plainly communicated in this PowerPoint...

The Securities Exchange Commission has introduced a Roadmap that describes a process leading to mandatory use of IFRS by domestic issuers by 2014. The SEC justifies this initiative on the grounds that global standardization yields cost savings and an ultimate gain in comparability, facilitating...

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...

This paper argues for the pivotal role played by accountability in both corporate governance theory and practice. The reader is invited to take a journey through the history of the concept, by highlighting ten major points of interest, either real-life events or academic debates, which can be...

Financial reporting around the time of IPOs is consistent with listed firms reporting more conservatively than previously as private firms, consistent with the results in Ball and Shivakumar (2005). We hypothesize that IPO firms supply the higher quality financial reports demanded by public...

This paper examines the effect of corporate governance on investor reactions to accounting choice in the context of accounting for business combinations. Using a sample of 324 recent stock swap acquisitions I find that, contrary to practitioners' belief that capital markets penalize purchase...

This paper examines the potential impacts of artificial smoothing (abnormal accruals) and real smoothing (derivatives) on firm value. We find that the value of the firm decreases with the magnitude of abnormal accruals and increases with the level of derivative use. Moreover, the accrual...