The adoption of SAB 101, a regulation affecting revenue recognition, was controversial. The SEC argued that firms were using their revenue recognition practices to manage earnings, while opponents asserted that eliminating accepted revenue recognition practices would decrease the quality of...

This research studies one specific financial instrument – Mortgage Servicing Rights (MSRs) and examines whether the fair value of MSRs based on managerial inputs (Level 3) has financial reporting characteristics that differ from the fair value of MSRs based on market inputs (Level 2). Since...

The synthetic lease is a hybrid financing structure that allows a company to obtain many of the benefits of asset ownership, including capital lease treatment for tax purposes, while treating lease payments as operating expenses on the firm's income statement. Proponents of these off balance...

We consider how corporate culture affects regulatory compliance activities across functions within a firm and investigate the economic consequences of a weak compliance culture. We examine a group of publicly traded pharmaceutical companies over the period of 2003 to 2013 that are required to...

Operating leases have grown significantly as a source of corporate financing over the last 30 years. Their off-balance sheet treatment, which may in part explain their popularity, raises concern that financial risk may be misjudged and capital misallocated. Prior research evidence on the above...

This paper investigates the extent to which banks alter the timing and magnitude of transactions such as asset sales, loan loss accruals, pension settlements and securities issues in response to primary capital, tax, and earnings goals. The authors hypothesize that each year bank managers face a...

This study examines whether accounting changes result in changes in the economic behaviour of financial institutions. The results of several papers examining how banks respond to accounting changes that affect their regulatory capital ratios are consistent with Furfine's (2000) summary that...

This paper examines three motivations for leveraged ESOP adoption: as a takeover defense, as a mechanism for providing incentives to employees and as a vehicle for tax savings. ESOP adoption is more likely for companies with a higher predicted probability of takeover, but ESOP adopters have many...

Performance pricing is a recent contractual innovation, which ties interest rates to a pre-specified grid of some measure of credit risk. We investigate performance pricing because it is becoming a common feature in bank debt, and essentially represents a rare example of market pricing directly...