This study examines whether acquirers make better acquisition decisions when target firms' financial statements exhibit greater comparability with industry peer firms. We predict and find that acquirers make more profitable acquisition decisions when target firms' financial statements are more...

We examine the measurement error in surrogate measures of operating cash flows and accruals widely used in the accounting literature. We decompose the measurement error into two components, non-articulation error and omission error. We find that the measurement error is large in magnitude and...

This study examines whether requiring the disclosure of audited financial statements disciplines managers' mergers and acquisitions (M&A) decisions. When an M&A transaction meets certain disclosure thresholds, the SEC requires the public acquirer to disclose the target's audited financial...

We examine the real effects of lease capitalization rules (i.e., standards that require firms to capitalize finance leases) on corporate investment. We hypothesize that, in order to comply with these standards, managers collect, process, and disclose additional information, which leads them to...

We examine whether tax-motivated income shifting by U.S. multinational corporations affects information asymmetry. Using a new firm-year measure of income shifting and a two-stage least squares approach, we find income shifting is positively associated with four measures of information...

This study examines whether requiring the disclosure of audited financial statements disciplines managers' mergers and acquisitions (M&As) decisions. When an M&A transaction meets certain disclosure thresholds, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires the public acquirer to disclose...

Theory argues that career concerns (i.e., concerns about the impact of current performance on contemporaneous and future compensation) encourage managers to withhold bad news disclosure. However, empirical evidence regarding the extent to which a manager's career concerns are associated with a...

Management frequently attributes earnings news to various economic events. Using textual analysis, we identify the economic factors underlying earnings news from press releases. We document a wide range of industry-wide shocks and firm-specific actions to which the earnings news in management...