We introduce and apply machine transfer learning methods to analyze accounting disclosures. We use the examples of the new BERT language model and sentiment analysis of quarterly earnings disclosures to demonstrate the key transfer learning concepts of: (i) pre-training on generic “Big...

I study the MD&A section of 10-K filings and use disclosed numbers within the text of corporate narratives to proxy for the qualities of information that are demanded by long-term investors. I hypothesize and show that the prevalence of quantitative information in firms' written communication is...

Numbers are central to financial and accounting disclosures, yet current textual analysis research generally ignores numbers within disclosures. We hypothesize and show that the prevalence of numbers within a corporate disclosure is highly correlated with the readability of the disclosure. More...

This study examines whether mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) leads to capital market benefits through enhanced financial statement comparability. UK domestic standards are considered very similar to IFRS (Bae et al. 2008), suggesting any capital market...

Prior research provides evidence that managers delay the reporting of goodwill impairments. This study builds on this evidence by investigating whether managers use their private information regarding goodwill impairments to profit from trading in their own firms' shares. We find evidence of...

This case examines fair value accounting under lAS 41 for a European-listed agricultural firm. Students identify the firm's core operations, distinguishing the IFRS treatment for three distinct assets: land; agricultural assets that reside on the land; and inventory harvested from the land. They...