This research synthesis evaluates relevant research concerning the audit report. For too long, there has been a significant “expectations gap” between what financial statement users expect an audit is delivering and what the audit profession believes it is providing. This gap becomes...

Over the past fifty years, barriers to international trade have decreased substantially. While the decline in protectionism since World War II has stemmed partly from unilateral changes in trade policy by countries, it also has been a result of agreements among countries to liberalize their...

How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect public attitudes toward international trade? While the economic shock and perceived foreign threat associated with the pandemic might have increased protectionist sentiments, the rapidly evolving sense of isolation, rising prices, and shortages of various...

Societal theories of trade policy stress the importance of domestic interest groups, whereas statist theories focus on the effects of domestic institutions. Debates over the relative merits of these approaches have been fierce, but little systematic empirical research has been brought to bear on...

We analyze whether--and, if so, how--Americans reacted to the escalation of the trade war between the United States and China in June 2018. To address this issue, we leverage surveys conducted in the U.S. during this phase of the economic clash. We find a significant reduction in support for...

Despite their less vulnerable economic status, white individuals' attitudes toward overseas trade in the U.S. may have become more protectionist than those of economically disadvantaged minorities. We present results from five different studies examining two different ways in which trade may...

In 2006, the SEC amended the disclosure requirements for executive compensation and stock ownership. This paper examines the effects of these amendments on (1) the association between equity-based executive incentives and firm payout choice, and (2) the association between executive compensation...

Using a sample of dividend-paying firms, we show that much of the variation in accruals and real activities can be explained by firms' different performance trajectories. High (low) performance firms spend more (less) on SG&A and CAPEX and hold what appear to be abnormally low (high) levels of...

CPA certification is an important measure of professional achievement and a critical element to advancement in the accounting profession. The CPA exam is rigorous, with overall lower pass rates relative to other professional exams, and even lower pass rates for historically disadvantaged groups....

Many studies have attempted to identify firm specific characteristics that influence the return-earnings relationship. The R-squared reported in these studies, however, are generally low and the earnings response coefficients are less than the theoretical value. Three factors have contributed to...