Though empirical evidence strongly supports the role of short-term operating accruals in improving operating cash flows as a measure of performance, there is little support or consensus with respect to the effect of long-term accruals. We provide evidence that long-term accruals do reduce timing...

The relative importance of country- and industry-specified factors vis-à-vis company-specific financial-statement-based information in explaining equity valuation multiples in an international setting is examined. Both country-specific effects via previously identified variables and an...

In October 2014, the Australian National University announced that it was divesting from seven fossil fuel-intensive companies. This announcement sparked an unprecedented response in the community, both positive and negative. We examine this decision, the divestment movement in general, the...

Case studies of the change from cash to accrual accounting for tobacco licence fees (TLF) by the three members of the Australian tobacco manufacturing oligopoly illustrate the endogeneity of accounting method choice and provide evidence of a quot;product marketquot; effect on that choice. Prior...

This paper examines accounting and non-accounting based restrictive covenants in Australian private debt agreements. With respect to the former, our findings differ from previous research on public debt. We find more varied definitions of constraints and their specific tightness in private debt...

This paper investigates whether mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is followed by a decline in firms' sub-optimal investments. On average, we find that the probability of under-investment in capital expenditure declines for firms from 23 countries requiring...

Several major stock exchanges, including the NASDAQ and NYSE Euronext, have recently embarked on schemes to sponsor and promote analyst coverage for firms listed on their exchanges. We evaluate the efficacy of one such scheme pioneered by the Singapore Exchange (SGX). We find that sponsored...

Following Dechow (1994) we investigate the relative usefulness (and economic significance) of short-versus long-term accruals in improving cash flows as a measure of performance. First, we re-examine Dechow's premise that long-term accruals are expected to be less useful than short-term...

Prior research (Behn et al. 2008) suggests that higher audit quality is associated with increased accuracy and reduced dispersion in earnings forecasts issued by sell-side analysts. We extend this work to consider how audit quality impacts the information environment in which analysts operate....

I would like to welcome readers to the Journal for the May Issue. The Journal continues to progress with a strong inflow of submissions and a concerted push for us to keep turnaround times to a minimum. Our current manuscript turnaround time is under 8 weeks on average despite an increasing new...