We document strong evidence of a declining relation between R&D and future profitability, which coincides with a number of important economic changes including a significant increase in R&D spending. We identify several contributors to this decline, including changes in the nature and riskiness...

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff review registrant filings for compliance with accounting and reporting standards to deter misconduct and facilitate investor access to high quality information (SEC 2020). Using a novel approach to identify all SEC staff who work on a review, we...

Business complexity is an important informational friction but challenging to measure. We use a GPT large language model fine-tuned on narrative disclosures and inline XBRL tags to measure business complexity from a user perspective. Our measure negatively correlates with the speed of capital...

The SEC recently proposed new restrictions and expanded disclosures to combat insider trading abuses. We examine the effects of analogous regulatory interventions related to ownership sales in thoroughbred horse betting, a market with numerous parallels to capital markets. Drawing on the...

We test whether an impending change in the accounting for goodwill mitigates bias in the initial values that acquirers assign to intangible assets. Results of two experiments with experienced professional participants suggest that the new accounting alters, but does not eliminate, bias in...

Earnings are an important input for equity investors’ valuation decisions. Managers and analysts increasingly report non-GAAP earnings on an ongoing basis, routinely removing recurring items, such as amortization and stock-based compensation, from GAAP earnings. We document that by 2019,...

We present evidence that, while individuals with accounting expertise bring key skills to financial reporting responsibilities of the CFO position, they tend to lack educational and career experiences relevant to non-accounting responsibilities (e.g., operations and strategy). Assuming boards'...

This study examines how universal demand (UD) laws affect shareholder derivative litigation risk and financial reporting decisions. We provide evidence that the incremental risk from derivative litigation beyond parallel securities class actions or SEC actions appears low in financial reporting...

We examine how Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement varies at fiscal year- end. Using a sample of over 12,000 SEC enforcement actions, we find that the number of case filings in September, the final month of the SEC’s fiscal year, is approximately double the average of other...

One consequence of the shift to fair value measurement is the emergence of voluntary disclosures in audited financial statements that question the reliability of mandated fair value information. We refer to these disclosures as reliability disavowals and address three questions: Are fair value...