We demonstrate that investors in initial public offering (IPO) firms value revenues and that IPO managers report revenues opportunistically in the fiscal year just prior to the offer. We also find that these pre-IPO firm financial statements are more likely to be subsequently restated. Our...

This study investigates the determinants of firms' decision to impair goodwill under IFRS. Our empirical analysis is based on data for the years 2005 to 2011 for 8,110 non-financial firm-years and 1,358 financial firm-years from 21 countries where firms apply IFRS. We specifically investigate...

This paper studies financial statement information from the 50 largest international oil and gas companies during 1992 to 2011 and evaluates their relation to market values. In particular, we examine how this relationship is affected by accounting method choice (successful efforts versus full...

Credit rating agencies and auditors are complementary certification agents subject to a conflict of interest inherent in their compensation structure. We examine client firm credit ratings to test alternative hypotheses of abnormal audit fees. We predict and find both cross-sectional and time...

Municipal accounting information is widely believed to be useful to creditors in assessing bond default risk (e.g., Wallace 1985; Wilson and Howard 1985). Users of accounting information perceive that Big 8 auditors provide higher quality audits both for corporations (Shockley and Holt 1983; McKinley et...

Audits provide monitoring for investors. The collapse of markets across the financial crisis made assets more difficult to value, which increased risk for auditors. The money markets were at the center of the financial crisis increasing audit engagement risk on money market funds, which at the...

The initial public offering (IPO) market is characterized by large, periodic swings in new issue volume, commonly referred to as hot and cold markets. We compare IPO assurance fees over these cycles controlling for factors that are potentially associated with hot IPO markets. We find that...

We investigate whether firms' tax planning affects the accuracy of analysts' forecasts. Tax planning can exacerbate the complexity of firms' operations through strategic choices to exploit tax laws. Because of its effect on firms' operations, tax planning can influence analysts' efforts to...

While inputs into analysts' valuation models have been documented (Brown et al. 2015), analysts' prior perceptions of reported financial statement items have not yet been studied. It is important to be aware of analysts' perceptions of the current accounting standards because they are, to some...

We examine how Big N auditors' changing incentives impact their comment-letter lobbying on U.S. GAAP over the first thirty-four years of the FASB (1973-2006). In particular, we focus on the influence of auditors' lobbying incentives arising from two basic factors: managing expected litigation...