This paper examines whether managers in the U.S. manage earnings, profits and losses surprises to a greater extent than do managers in 12 other countries. We expect managers in the U.S. to be more likely to manage earnings, profits and losses surprises than do managers in other countries since...

This paper examines why CFOs become involved in material accounting manipulations. We find that while CFOs bear substantial legal costs when involved in accounting manipulations, these CFOs have similar equity incentives to the CFOs of matched non-manipulation firms. In contrast, CEOs of...

Using theory and empirical data from social psychology to measure for cultural differences between countries, we study the effect of individualism as defined by Hofstede (1980) and egalitarianism as defined by Schwartz (1994, 1999, 2004) on earnings management. We find a significant influence of...

The exercise price of stock options is typically the closing stock price on the option grant dates, so managers can potentially benefit from low stock prices on those dates. Prior studies find that on average, managers issue more pessimistic guidance before than after grant dates. They interpret...

Based on signal theory and legitimacy theory, this paper examines whether firms with financial reporting misstatements (restatements) would prefer conservative financial reporting to send signals regarding their determinants of improving financial reporting credibility and legitimate...

Objective - The purpose of this research is to obtain empirical research on the effect of corporate governance on earnings management in distressed and non-distressed companies. Corporate governance in this research is measured by independent board, audit committee, board of commissioners,...

We compare the quality of accounting numbers produced by two types of public firms - those with publicly-traded equity and those with privately-held equity that are nonetheless considered public by virtue of having publicly-traded debt. We develop and test two hypotheses. The quot;demandquot;...

This paper examines how capital market pressures and institutional factors shape firms' incentives to report earnings that reflect economic performance. To isolate the effects of reporting incentives, we exploit the fact that, within the European Union, privately held corporations face the same...

Prior literature suggests a positive relationship between financial reporting quality and the presence of accounting experts on audit committees. This study investigates the association between accruals quality and the characteristics of accounting experts and mix of accounting and...

In 2005, the SEC mandated that firms disclose risk factors to provide useful information about firm risk. An unintended effect of the mandate is that mandatory risk factor (RF) disclosure may constitute “meaningful cautionary language” as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform...