We use payroll data from a Big 4 accounting firm to examine the starting wage differentials for H-1B visa holders. Prior research in other industries has found both positive and negative differentials, but primarily relies on surveyed salary data. We observe that relative to U.S. citizen new...

We document that managers have a propensity to disproportionately report total revenue numbers just above base-ten thresholds (e.g., ten million, thirty million, one billion). Further tests investigate whether managers are motivated to beat these thresholds because of pressure to beat revenue...

Previous research documents a negative stock price reaction to the announcement of a debt covenant violation (DCV). However, managers of firms that violate a covenant often obtain waivers and renegotiate debt contracts with lenders before the SEC requires them to disclose a violation. Firms...

The newspaper industry has struggled in recent decades, as readers and marketing revenue have migrated to digital outlets. Facing these pressures, many US newspapers have downsized or closed completely. We examine changes in firm behavior after they experience a shock to the local newspaper...

We provide evidence of a non-intuitive link between equity analysts and bank loans. We hypothesize and find that the precision of the private information in sell-side equity analysts' earnings forecasts is associated with price and non-price characteristics of private debt. Using a measure of...

This study examines the effect of individual auditor quality (below the partner level) on overall audit quality. We aggregate audit employee-level performance evaluations to create a measure of auditor quality at the office level. We find that high quality audit offices are associated with a...

The operating activities section of the statement of cash flows presents a long-standing teaching challenge for accounting educators. The direct method is easy to understand yet difficult to prepare; the indirect method is harder to understand but easier to prepare. Many instructors address the...

Although the cash flow statement has been required in public financial reports since 1988 in the United States (and since 1994 according to International Financial Reporting Standards), these important cash flow data are still often overlooked in standard financial analyses. Accounting net...

We investigate whether banks rely on the information content in equity analysts' annual earnings forecasts when assessing the risk of potential borrowers. While a long literature finds that analysts provide useful information to market participants, it is not clear that banks, which have access...

This study examines how managers change their forecasting behavior as a debt covenant violation (DCV) approaches. Consistent with a change, we find that management forecasts are more optimistic in the quarter before a DCV, and this result is stronger when firms face a higher risk of shifting...