We investigate the determinants of hedge fund internal controls and their association with the fees that funds charge investors. Hedge funds are subject to minimal regulation. Hence, hedge fund managers voluntarily implement internal controls, and managers and investors freely contract on fees....

The first convergence project of IASB and FASB created the widely equivalent international and U.S. accounting standards for business combinations IFRS 3 and SFAS 141. The purchase price must be allocated to identifiable assets acquired and liabilities assumed with the residual amount recognized...

We find that bidders are more likely to hold conference calls at merger announcements when the mergers are financed with stock and when the transactions are large. After controlling for endogeneity, we also find that conference calls are associated with more favorable market reactions to merger...

This report updates and expands earlier studies to look at the profitability of $349.7 billion of buybacks executed from 2000 through early 2010 by a sample of 275 corporations. The sample companies, drawn mainly from the technology sector, enjoy total equity market value today of $945.6...

Using 180 manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2004, the paper proves that insiders with controlling interest more than 36.78% increase earnings management (discretionary accruals) by 10.6%. However, they are risk-adverse and avoid inefficient investment after the financial crisis. On the other...

We examine the impact of institutional ownership on financial reporting discretion, focusing on whether the impact varies with institutions' cost of acquiring monitoring information. We posit that geographic distance between the firm and a monitoring institutional investor impacts the...

Corporate ethical behavior is influenced by the social context in which a corporation operates. The social context consists of legal rules, law enforcement as well as shared norms (culture). Prior literature explores the effects of legal rules and law enforcement on private control benefits and...

Not surprisingly, the recent accounting scandals look different when viewed from the perspectives of the political/regulatory process and of the market for corporate governance and financial reporting. We do not have the opportunity to observe a world in which either market or...

This paper examines the implications of mandatory IFRS adoption on the accounting quality of banks in twelve EU countries. Specifically, we analyse how the change in the recognition and measurement of banks' main operating accrual item, the loan loss provision, affects income smoothing behaviour...

We examine the association between board independence and the characteristics of non-GAAP earnings. Our results suggest that companies with less independent boards are more likely to opportunistically exclude recurring items from non-GAAP earnings. Specifically, we find that exclusions from...