We hypothesize that the root cause of many goodwill write-offs - managers' public admission of ill-advised corporate acquisitions - is the overpriced shares of buyers at acquisition. Overpriced shares provide managers with strong incentives to invest, and particularly to acquire businesses, even...

This Professor Cunningham's Introduction to his edited collection of Warren Buffett's noted letters to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The collection was prepared for a symposium held at Cardozo Law School in New York City in 1997 and originally published in the Cardozo Law Review. The...

This is Professor Cunningham's Introduction to his renowned edited collection of Warren Buffett's famous letters to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The collection was originally prepared for a symposium held in New York City in 1997 and has been regularly updated through five editions,...

The increase in the importance of intangibles in business competitiveness has made investment selection more challenging to investors that, under high information asymmetry, tend to charge higher premiums to provide capital or simply deny it. Private Equity and Venture Capital (PE/VC)...

The paper assesses the value of the information contained in management's determination of the accounting treatment for software development costs. The assessment is made in the context of the initial public offerings (IPO) market and is based on the effect of the accounting treatment on...

Innovation capital are typically expensed and/or unrecognized as assets under current generally accepted accounting principles. This results in accounting-related information asymmetry. This paper examines the association of innovation capital (as measured here by the proxies of Ramp;D...

Using the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006, we examine the credibility of mandatory disclosure by credit rating agencies (CRAs) on managerial learning from stock prices. We find an increase in investment-price sensitivity for firms affected by the Act. Consistent with managers relying...

This article provides an insightful overview of the challenges encountered by the insurance industry when applying the requirements of IFRS 17 to reinsurance contracts. Through the metaphor "Fitting a Square Peg in a Round Hole," the author effectively captures the complexities and difficulties...

This study identifies several interrelated reasons why firms' depreciation method choice is likely to influence managers' capital investment decisions. We find that firms that use accelerated depreciation make significantly larger capital investments than firms that use straight-line...

This study addresses conservatism in financial reporting. Firms seek financing for an investment. Investors have access to an imperfect accounting signal that may also have a conservative tendency. If the firms have no private information, conservatism is desirable only for negative ex ante...