This paper examines a fundamental question of interest to researchers and regulators: Does the market treat disclosed financial statement information as if it is less reliable than information recognized in the body of the financial statements? Specifically, we compare the perceived reliability...

Prior studies of annual report timing treat all reports filed before SEC deadlines as similar. We show this is not the case. Nearly 40 percent of 10-Ks are filed well in advance of SEC deadlines, and the propensity of early reporting continues to increase. We find that the firm characteristics...

The Canadian Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) issued an exposure draft on a proposal to adopt a separate 'Made in Canada' GAAP for private enterprises. This new GAAP is justified as being consistent with the current FASB/IASB conceptual framework, but as being responsive to the different...

The recent change in financial reporting for lease obligations provides an opportunity to assess whether the new disclosures improve the information environment available for credit risk assessments and decision-making. Comparisons of newly reported capitalized operating leases, weighted average...

Statement of Financial Accounting Standards Number 94 (FAS 94) requires that firms consolidate all majority-owned subsidiaries, including those that were previously exempt from consolidation requirements due to the dissimilarity of parents/subsidiary operations. Prior to FAS 94, firms disclosed...

We compare characteristics of municipal debt issues in states that mandate GAAP for municipalities with issues in states that impose no annual financial disclosure requirements. Cross-sectional comparisons indicate that the use of public (versus private) debt is greater, and municipal debt costs...

In this paper, we derive a measure of diluted EPS that incorporates the economic implications of the dilutive effects of employee stock options. We show that the existing FASB treasury-stock method of accounting for the dilutive effects of outstanding options systematically understates the...

Using a sample of publicly traded savings and loan associations, this paper provides evidence that off-balance sheet derivatives activities are positively associated with lower stock-price interest rate sensitivity. Similar to the results for derivatives, on-balance sheet exposures to interest...

In light of the uncertainties about valuation highlighted by the 2007-2008 market turbulence, this paper provides an empirical examination of the potential procyclicality that fair value accounting (FVA) could introduce in bank balance sheets. The paper finds that, while weaknesses in the FVA...

The effect of disclosure level on the cost of equity is a matter of considerable interest and importance to the financial reporting community. In this research, the effects of the IAS/IFRS adoption in Europe on the cost of equity capital relative to the bank industry have been examined. Previous...