Existing literature shows CEOs are rewarded for any positive component of income and are partially shielded from negative special items. However, the incidence of and rules pertaining to nonrecurring items significantly changed over the last two decades. I uncover that executives benefit less...

We examine several potential explanations for the contemporaneous reporting of income increasing and income decreasing special items. The analysis is rooted in the observation that the practice should be infrequent since statement users discount special items relative to recurring income, i.e.,...

Accounting regulations require firms to separately disclose the profits and losses fromdiscontinued operations. These discontinued operations are typically excluded from thedefinition of income used by investors, analysts, and other financial statement users. Barua, Lin,and Sbaraglia (2010) show...

To provide a fuller picture of compliance with SFAS 142, we hand-collect data to track 893 large acquisitions. Our model, which links impairments to post-acquisition performance declines and acquisition-year attributes, identifies 349 acquisitions as likely to impair. We expand compliance to...

Researchers have used patent counts, citation weighted patent counts, as well as research and development spending to measure innovation with, at times, conflicting results. We benchmark the validity of these innovation proxies using a novel data set of appraised tangible and intangible assets....