Estimates and projections are embedded in most financial statement items. These estimates potentially improve the relevance of financial information by providing managers the means to convey to investors forward-looking, inside information (e.g., on future collections from customers via the bad...

Instrumental variable (IV) methods are commonly used in accounting research (e.g., earnings management, corporate governance, executive compensation, and disclosure research) when the regressor variables are endogenous. While IV estimation is the standard textbook solution to mitigating...

We investigate the role of accrual accounting in the asymmetrically timely recognition of unrealized gains and losses (i.e., prior to the actual realization of those losses in cash). This role of accrual accounting has not been directly recognized in the literature. We show that non-linear...

We examine the relation between a broad set of corporate governance indicators and various measures of managerial decision making and organizational performance. Using a sample of 2,106 firms, we distill 39 structural measures of corporate governance (e.g., board characteristics, stock...

Managers appear to manipulate firm earnings through their characterizations of pension assets to capital markets and alter investment decisions to justify, and capitalize on, these manipulations. Managers are more aggressive with assumed long-term rates of return when their assumptions have a...

We examine the relation between the relative amount of fees paid to auditors for non-audit services and the behavior of accrual measures. We extend prior research in two important directions. First, using a pooled sample of 2,295 firms for the fiscal year 2000, we find very little evidence of a...

Discount rate selection represents a centrally material factor impacting valuation models. Given the strong reliance on discounted cash flow modelling as a basis for determining an assets recoverable amount, the judgement exercised by reporting entities regarding rate selection is of paramount...

We investigate the association between errors in management forecasts of subsequent year earnings and current year accruals. In an uncertain operating environment, managers' assessments of their firms' business prospects are imperfect. Since managers' imperfect business assessments influence...

Whether the fair value option (FVO) of FAS 159 should be permitted is a controversial issue. I examine three research questions using a sample from the banking industry. First, I examine what factors are associated with the adoption of the FVO. Second, I examine whether firms use the FVO as...

Reputation is a market mechanism widely believed to effectively resolve problems of asymmetric information. It relies, however, on consumers taking into account any available information on unobserved product characteristics (quality). Exploiting the natural experiment of Arthur Andersen's...