In this study, I examine whether firms and executives with long-term political connections through contributions and lobbying incur lower costs from the enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). I find that politically connected firms on average are less likely to be...

The properties of earnings have changed dramatically over the past 40 years. Prior studies interpret this trend as a decline in earnings quality but disagree on whether it results from changes in the real economy or changes in accounting standards. I find that each new cohort of listed firms...

I examine the short- and long-term impact of the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) on cross-listed foreign private issuers. Both short- and long-term test results suggest that the costs of SOX compliance significantly exceed its benefits and reduce the net benefits of cross-listings.

The SEC promulgated the Securities Offering Reform (SOR) in 2005 to ease disclosure restrictions prior to seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). The SEC argued that SOR would improve the information environment, but critics claimed it would allow firms to hype their stock. This paper is the first to...

We examine whether the recent regime of increased liquidity and trading activity is associated with attenuation of prominent equity return anomalies due to increased arbitrage. We find that the majority of the anomalies have attenuated and the average returns from a portfolio strategy based on...

Earnings asymmetric timeliness captures both accrual and operating cash flow (CFO) asymmetric timeliness. Because recognition of operating cash flows does not reflect differential verification thresholds for recognizing unrealized gains versus losses, CFO asymmetry adds noise or bias to tests of...

We view audit-quality choice as one among many that managers make to maximize firm value. We question whether audit-quality differences among publicly traded companies are of significant interest to investors, clients, and auditors and ask for research on this topic. Relatedly, we ask for...

This study examines the association between U.S. Census industry concentration measures and the informativeness of corporate disclosure policy. We find that in more concentrated industries firms׳ management earnings forecasts are less frequent and have shorter horizons, their disclosure ratings...

We define higher audit quality as greater assurance of high financial reporting quality. Researchers use many proxies for audit quality, with little guidance on choosing among them. We provide a framework for systematically evaluating their unique strengths and weaknesses. Because it is...