We investigate a tax avoidance strategy where firms use the ambiguity inherent in tax reporting to classify indirect costs as research and development (R&D) expenditures to take advantage of the R&D tax credit. We label this tax practice “strategic R&D classification”. We find a one standard...

We examine the association between Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection reports and a firm's cost of equity capital, measured using seasoned equity offering (SEO) discounting. SEO discounting occurs when the offer price is lower than the prior day's market price of the...

With the advent of social media, individual public opinions about firms can be more easily accessed and aggregated, and recent research suggests that various platforms, such as Twitter, Seeking Alpha, and Estimize, provide information relevant in predicting future corporate disclosures. Rather...

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) annually inspects BigFour auditors. The PCAOB summarizes its findings (labeled ‘audit deficiencies’) in publiclyavailable reports on its website. While the PCAOB claims that its inspection findings and processare designed to increase...

PCAOB AS 3101 requires the auditor to communicate in the audit report any critical audit matters (CAMs) identified during the planning or performance of the audit. One of the most common type of CAMs (revenue CAMs) relates to core earnings, which is fundamental to valuing a corporation (Penman 2001;...

This article reviews family firm studies in the finance and accounting literature, primarily those conducted using data from the United States and China. Family owners have unique features such as concentrated ownership, long investment horizon, and reputation concerns. Given the distinguishing...