How does a public announcement about a company exploring its potential sale or merger (“strategic alternatives”) affect the company and its shareholders? This study provides the first look at some of the positive and negative consequences to this unique disclosure of strategic alternatives....

A large body of empirical research in accounting investigates the causes and consequences of accruals quality, reaching numerous influential conclusions. Yet little work has been done to systematically evaluate the validity of the underlying measures of accruals quality. We evaluate these...

Accounting earnings summarize periodic corporate financial performance and are key determinants of stock prices. We review research on the usefulness of accounting earnings, including research on the link between accounting earnings and firm value and research on the usefulness of accounting...

Prior papers characterizing takeover targets do not address the possibility that certain attributes affect the selling firm's volition to seek its sale while opposite attributes are sought by bidders. Using a sample of potential target firms that volitionally put themselves up for sale, I find...

Research on accounting accruals is pervasive. Yet the measurement and modeling of accruals has developed in an ad hoc manner, resulting in a fragmented and incomplete body of research. Our goal is to rectify this situation by (i) providing a comprehensive definition of accruals, (ii) formulating...