Studies suggest that, pursuant to the implementation of SFAS 133, even sophisticated users of financial statements find it difficult to comprehend earnings implications of hedging derivatives. Moreover, due to stringent hedge accounting requirements under these standards, many economic hedges do...

Recent corporate governance scandals have been attributed to a lack of board independence because of the influence CEOs have over their boards. However, CEOs can also affect board efficacy without compromising its independence by strategically choosing directors. We offer a theoretical framework...

We develop a framework with which to analyze the interactions among auditor attestation strategy, corporate investment decision, and capital market valuation. We use this framework to examine mandatory audit firm rotation (Section 207 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) and identify its three potential...

We examine optimal equity-based incentives for the Board of Directors (BOD) in a hierarchical agency framework. The underlying agency problem is due to a shareholder-manager conflict on investment policy. There is an endogenous demand for directors to monitor the quality of the firm's investment...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance attached to revenue forecasts by firms and the market, and whether these forecasts are value-relevant conditional on earnings forecasts. We address two related questions. First, we examine whether the capital market reaction to earnings (and...

By addressing the interaction between security market microstructure and the generalized agency conflict between managers and shareholders, we study the effects of informed insider trading on productive efficiency, price discovery, and wealth redistribution. Insider trading can lead...

In this paper, we provide an equilibrium explanation for the observed optimism in analysts' earnings forecasts. Our analysis provides theoretical support to the widely held notion that analysts engage in earnings optimism to gain access to management's private information. We show that a...