We provide evidence that managers use the discretion afforded by fair-value accounting rules to manage the size of reported securitization gains. We show that the ambiguity allowed in discount rate choice is one way that managers can influence these gains. We investigate whether CEO compensation...

Researchers have used various measures as indications of "earnings quality" including persistence, accruals, smoothness, timeliness, loss avoidance, investor responsiveness, and external indicators such as restatements and SEC enforcement releases. For each measure, we discuss causes of...

We examine whether marathon runners exhibit behavior consistent with the assumptions of prospect theory. We test whether round number finishing times (three hours, four hours, etc.) are used as reference points and whether runners increase their effort at the end of the race to avoid the...

This paper suggests a new measure of one aspect of the quality of accruals and earnings. The major benefit of accruals is to reduce timing and mismatching problems in the underlying cash flows. However, accruals accomplish this benefit at the cost of making assumptions and estimates about future...

We examine the strategies adopted by people completing a well-defined but challenging task: running a marathon. We investigate whether the goal of a non-binding round number finish time (e.g., 3:00 hours) motivates runners to engage in more optimal running strategies to improve their performance...