Accounting for stock options and executive remuneration have been one of the most debated and controversial issues in accounting regulation and corporate governance. The purpose of this study was to analyse the impact of the mandatory adoption of IFRS 2 for accounting of stock options in Italian...

The dramatic increase in the number of restatements filed over the past years has been attributed to numerous causes, including the complexity of the accounting standards, internal control reviews, changes in materiality thresholds, the overly conservative nature of auditors, earnings...

This paper is the first in a two part series on conservatism in accounting. Part I examines alternative explanations for conservatism in accounting and their implications for accounting regulators. Part II summarizes the empirical evidence on conservatism, its consistency with alternative...

This paper examines conservatism in accounting. Conservatism is defined as the differential verifiability required for recognition of profits versus losses. In its extreme form the definition incorporates the traditional conservatism adage: quot;anticipate no profit, but anticipate all...

In this paper, we empirically examine the relationship between two audit committee characteristics - the composition (expertise and independence) and size of the audit committee - and the quality of financial reporting. We show that after controlling for firm size, board composition, a measure...

Lang, Raedy and Wilson (2006) examine the properties of U.S. GAAP accounting numbers provided by cross-listed firms and compare them to those of U.S. firms. Using a wide range of properties related to earnings management, timely loss recognition, and value relevance, LRW show that accounting...

Lang, Raedy and Wilson (JAE 2006) compare the properties of U.S. GAAP accounting numbers across cross-listed and U.S. firms. Using a wide range of properties, LRW show that accounting data are not comparable, even though sample firms use the same accounting standards. I discuss how these...

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;...

We examine the relation between firm-level transparency, stock market liquidity, and valuation across a variety of international settings. We document lower transaction costs and greater liquidity (as measured by lower bid-ask spreads and fewer zero-return days) for firms with greater...

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...