This study explores how legal institutions have the potential to change economic development outcomes. Talmudic law ostensibly precludes the transfer (sale) of intangible assets and intangible rights thereby limiting an agricultural society's ability to hedge risks and to raise financing. We...

This pedagogical note introduces the accounting-based variance decomposition methodology of Vuolteenaho (2002) in a relatively simple format for the edification of accounting scholars and Ph.D. students who wish to use variance decomposition in their research. In addition to presenting an...

The Vuolteenaho (2002) return decomposition is linear because it assumes that the market's return expectations are obtained solely from accounting information. By restricting accounting recognition rules to specific (and primarily) negative future cash flow shocks, conservative accounting drives...

This study evaluates the impact of earnings on firm credit risk as captured by Credit Default Swaps (CDS). We find that earnings (changes) are negatively correlated with one-year swap premia (changes) after controlling for equity returns but not with longer term premia (changes). We also find...

We examine whether domestic or foreign earnings contribute more to the variability of unexpected stock returns for a sample of U.S. multinationals and consider the role of investor sophistication. We use a variance decomposition methodology that measures the contribution of each earnings...

Although several studies have examined how investors value domestic versus foreign earnings, the results are inconsistent. We re-examine this question employing a variance decomposition model which, in contrast to previous research, explicitly considers expectation models for domestic and...

We utilize the staggered adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) by U.S. state courts as an exogenous shock to the proprietary costs of disclosure and study the impact of the IDD on corporate financial reporting policy. We find compelling evidence that firms headquartered in states...

Ronald Coase pioneered the transaction cost approach to the modern analysis of institutions, contracts, and property rights. We argue that core theory enhances Coase’s transaction cost approach by injecting considerations of coalition formation and stability into the analysis. Analysis of...

This study tests whether IFRS adoption increased accounting transparency based on model-driven hypotheses. Duffie and Lando (2001) show that changes to accounting transparency affect the spread/maturity relation of CDS instruments in very specific ways. Consistent with their model, we find that...

Using a large sample of U.S. public firms, we find robust evidence that short interest is positively related to one-year ahead stock price crash risk. The evidence is consistent with the view that short sellers are able to ferret out bad news hoarding by managers. Additional findings show that...