This paper develops and validates a measure of tax accrual quality. Tax accrual quality captures variation in the extent to which the income tax accrual maps into income tax-related cash flows, with lower variation indicating a higher quality tax accrual. Low tax accrual quality arises from (1)...

We provide evidence that disclosed items are not processed differently from recognized items when the disclosures are salient, not based on management estimates and amenable to simple techniques for imputing as-if recognized amounts. For a sample of firms with both capital and operating leases,...

We examine the relation between audit committee (AC) responsibilities and financial reporting reliability. AC responsibilities have increased over time, prompting concerns that overloading ACs may impair financial reporting. Using new AC charter-based proxies to measure AC responsibilities, we...

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...

I investigate reliability differences across recognition and disclosure regimes to shed light on differing incentives and reporting of employee stock option (ESO) fair values. I compare ESO fair values based on firm-reported inputs with ESO fair values based on benchmark inputs, estimated...

We investigate how managers’ decisions to file audited financial reports prior to SEC reporting deadlines relate to the economic role of mandatory reporting. Contrary to the view that audited financial reports will be more informative when they are filed earlier, we find that managers file...