This paper addresses the question whether adoption of IFRS-standards is associated with lower earnings management. Ball et al. (2003) argue that adopting high-quality standards might be a necessary condition for high quality information, but not necessarily a sufficient one. In Germany, a...

Public disclosure about effectiveness of internal control systems is subject to much controversy in Canada, resulting in Canadian disclosures being made in Management Discussion and Analysis (MDamp;A). These disclosures are provided to investors without a definition of the weaknesses to be...

This paper uses firms' disclosures of internal control problems prior to audits mandated by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) to investigate the economic factors that expose firms to internal control failure risks and managements' incentives to discover and report internal control...

This paper examines the differences in accrual-based and real earnings management across countries from the perspective of investor protection. Following prior research (Leuz et al., 2003), we hypothesize that accrual-based earnings management is more constrained by strict discipline in...

We examine whether firms with managers that have prior internal audit experience are less likely to manage earnings. We find that firms with managers that have internal audit experience are associated with less overall earnings management, driven by lower real earnings management. Importantly,...

We examine the association between board independence and the characteristics of non-GAAP earnings. Our results suggest that companies with less independent boards are more likely to opportunistically exclude recurring items from non-GAAP earnings. Specifically, we find that exclusions from...

We investigate the impact of mandatory internal control and risk management (ICRM) reform on earnings-based attributes of accounting quality in Germany. Although prior studies examine changes in accounting quality under SOX Sections 302 and 404, there is scant evidence of the accounting quality...

Using an institutional setting where GAAP is relatively unconstrained, we examine whether managers use their goodwill accounting discretion to reflect firms' growth options that are not otherwise captured in reported identifiable assets. We employ a continuous dependent variable to find that...

This paper examines how the characteristics of accounting systems and management incentives interact and collectively determine financial reporting quality. We develop a rational expectations equilibrium model that features a steady-state firm with investments, financial and non-financial...

Lobo and Zhou (2006) find an increase in accounting conservatism following the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. In Japan, the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act of 2006, the so-called Japanese Sarbanes–Oxley Act (J-SOX), was implemented for fiscal years ending on or after March 31, 2009....