This paper examines the role played by national-level versus city-specific industry audit experts in mitigating the information asymmetries between borrowers and syndicated loan lenders. Using the framework developed in Ferguson et al. (2003) and Francis et al. (2005), we document that lenders...

We hypothesize that if individual auditors possess unique audit styles that they consistently apply to different audit engagements, then client firms with a common signing auditor will exhibit higher earnings comparability. Using a large sample of Chinese firms, we find that client firms report...

Roychowdhury (2006) constructed the measure of abnormal production costs to detect overproduction behaviour, which is widely used as a valid proxy in real earnings management. However, there is little evidence about its validity. This study is intended to fill the gap by focusing on the measure...

This study investigates how board networks affect the directors’ decision to retain auditors who are industry experts. Based on the unique data in Taiwan, where the audit report is issued in the name of two signing auditors as well as the audit firm, we find that a firm is more likely to...

In this paper, we examine how the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) affects ownership structure and debt covenants in the syndicated loan market. We hypothesize and document that the proportion of the loan retained by syndicate lead arrangers increases...

The paper examines whether firms are more likely to meet or beat analysts' expectations (MBE) when there are more rivals with non-negative earnings surprises. First, we find that after controlling for rival firms earnings information for the period, firms are more likely to meet analysts'...

The paper examines syndicated loan market to study whether and how borrowers' meeting or beating analysts' expectations (MBE) have more favorable debt contractual terms. Using a sample of listed loan firms in Dealscan database during 1998-2009, we find that, as predicted, firms missing analysts'...

Prior studies recognize that information transfers associated with a firm's earnings announcement occur due to shifts in industry's competition balance. In this paper, we examine whether market assigns a lower reward (greater penalty) to a firm meeting (missing) earnings expectations (therefore...

This study examines whether voluntary disclosure enhances investment efficiency through its information-leveling role in the capital markets. We argue that investment efficiency improves with the quality of managers’ past earnings forecasts because past forecast quality alleviates information...