We examine the valuation role of customer acquisition cost, retention and usage in the wireless industry during the period 1997-2004. We develop and test a model that links customer acquisition cost, customer retention and call usage to future financial performance and valuation. In doing so, we...

We examine the valuation role of customer acquisition cost, retention and usage in the wireless industry during the period 1997–2004. We develop and test a model that links customer acquisition cost, customer retention and call usage to future financial performance and valuation. In doing so,...

In this paper I examine the incentives for voluntary disclosure of advertising expenditures for a sample of US firms for the period 1994-2003. I estimate proxies for the proprietary costs and valuation benefits of advertising with data from the mandatory disclosure period. My proxy for...

The fixed-effects specification is often used in panel datasets as a way of dealing with correlated omitted variables. A review of recent accounting publications reveals that while researchers are generally aware of the need to include fixed-effects in empirical models when using panel datasets...

We provide evidence that distinguishes between competing production cost-based explanations of how to interpret unusually high (or low) audit fees and their expected relation with accounting quality. Abnormally high or low fees are typically proxied by the residuals obtained from fee models....

This paper examines the impact of soft dollar practices on market equilibrium and trading profits. The setting is one in which there exist both money managers and individual (nonclient) investors and in which soft dollar payments from brokers to money managers cannot be publicly observed. In...

Is human capital an asset? We empirically address this question using the accounting concept of assets - costs should be capitalized as assets if they are expected to generate future measurable benefits with reasonable certainty. Also, holding the investment opportunity set constant, disposal of...

Using a large sample of domestic and foreign IPOs in the US, we investigate how threats of enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and private litigation influence earnings management in IPO prospectuses. We propose that perceptions of foreign institutions may influence SEC...

The True and Fair View (TFV) concept requires UK and EU companies to depart from GAAP or the law if necessary to present a true and fair view of the corporation's financial affairs. We analyze a sample of UK public companies that invoked a TFV override during 1998-2000 to assess whether...

This paper analyzes the effect of coverage initiation by a sell-side analyst on the production of private information. It shows that the sell-side analyst's information production may crowd out information production by buy-side analysts. Nonetheless, coverage initiation increases the total...