While the social and economic impacts of how disclosures are presented are well-understood, it is less clear how disclosure decisions unfold throughout the annual reporting cycle. We study this issue by exploring the experience of interpreting and implementing corporate reporting rules, focusing...

This paper examines the liquidity, Tobin's Q, and cost of equity effects from voluntary and mandatory IFRS adoption. In contrast to prior work, we focus on the firm level heterogeneity in the economic consequences, recognising that the level of uncertainty avoidance (UAI) in a country will...

We study firms' investment in internal control to reduce accounting manipulation. We first show the peer pressure for manipulation: one manager manipulates more if he suspects reports of peer firms are more likely to be manipulated. As a result, one firm's investment in internal control has a...

In the presence of litigation facing suppliers, the supply-chain relationship is at risk. Suppliers with principal customers (dependent suppliers) have a higher concentration of sales to customers, and they are more at risk relative to suppliers without principal customers (non-dependent...

We provide evidence on the effects of corporate lobbying on earnings management (EM). We argue that corporate lobbying provides firms with some degree of political protection from enforcement of laws and regulations. Thus, lobbying firms face a lower threat of enforcement which in turn reduces...

This paper studies firms’ information withholding in a mandatory environmental disclosure regime where regulators only allow firms to withhold information regarded as a trade secret. I find evidence of withholding information for reasons other than proprietary-cost concerns, which is...

The report explains why accounting is not a purely mechanical activity, but is affected by the incentives of those involved in the accounting process and by surrounding institutions, which help shape incentives and facilitate and constrain managers' actions. It looks at the principal factors...

This article investigates the development of accountability and fiduciary loyalty as an institutional response to information asymmetries in agency relations, especially in firm-like settings. Lord Eldon articulated the crucial role of information asymmetries in opportunistic behaviour in early...