We examine whether the information content of the earnings report, as captured by the earnings response coefficient (ERC), increases when investors' uncertainty about the manager's reporting objectives decreases, as predicted in Fischer and Verrecchia (2000). We use the 2006 mandatory...

Since the formation of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has spread and they have become global standards for financial reporting. However, they are not used unanimously all over the world. This paper focuses on...

Raising public environmental awareness provides many benefits. However, using an exogenous shock—the unexpected release of the environmental documentary “Under the Dome” in China—we show that raising environmental awareness may have the unintended consequence of distorting firms’...

Using an experiment with corporate financial managers (e.g., CFOs, controllers), we find that when red flags are present in the financial statements under their review, managers identify those red flags and, in turn, have greater concerns over earnings quality. In addition, when pressure to meet...

The Australian not-for-profit and charitable sector is an important component in that country’s social capital. It delivers services and supports to some of the most vulnerable people in the community. However, up until recently, poor data sets related to the sector’s financial performance...

This paper examines the asset write-off behavior of loss firms in response to tax rule changes. In particular, we investigate two simultaneous changes in tax loss carryforward offsetting in opposite directions in Germany and France. Understanding if and how tax losses affect firms’ financial...

This monograph provides a thorough review of earnings quality issues and analysis. Its primary objectives are to help gain a deep understanding of earnings quality and facilitate the development of comprehensive, granular, and contextual earnings quality indicators and analyses. While there are...

This paper examines earnings management around the reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% as enacted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. Building on a theoretical model that considers a higher level of book-tax conformity of ‘real earnings management’ (REM) relative to...

This study investigates whether corporate or owners' tax minimization affected earnings management when these incentives competed in private firms. The Finnish tax reform of 2005 provides an excellent setting for this type of investigation because the tax laws were changed so that corporate tax...

In recent years, reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) became mandatory in many countries. The capital-market effects around this change have been extensively studied, but their sources are not yet well understood. This study aims to distinguish between several...