We examine how the qualitative characteristics of a non-GAAP earnings disclosure reveal the quality of the non-GAAP performance metric itself. We measure the qualitative aspects of the non-GAAP disclosure using an index of 12 hand-coded characteristics and presentation choices that provide...

This study examines the effect of managerial fiduciary duties on the likelihood of firms receiving going concern (GC) opinions from their auditors. We exploit an influential 1991 legal ruling that expanded fiduciary duties of corporate directors and officers in favor of creditors for...

This study examines the relation between accounting conservatism and firms' capital structure adjustments. We find that firms with more conservative financial reporting adjust their capital structure toward the target more quickly, especially within firms that rely more on external financing for...

Using hand-collected information, we find that analysts who own stock in a company they follow make more informative recommendations and exert more effort in covering the company. However, we also find that analysts with stock ownership issue more optimistic target price forecasts. These...

We examine whether home country investor protection and ownership structure affect cross-listed firms' compliance with SOX-mandated internal control deficiency (ICD) disclosures. We develop a proxy for the likelihood of cross-listed firms' ICD misreporting during the Section 302 reporting...

Miller and Modigliani's (1961) dividend irrelevance theorem predicts that in perfect capital markets dividend policy should not affect investment decisions. Yet in imperfect markets, external funding constraints that stem from information asymmetry can force firms to forgo valuable investment...

This study examines how financial reporting quality affects corporate dividend policy. We find that higher quality reporting is associated with higher dividends. This positive association is more pronounced among firms with more severe free cash flow problems and among firms with higher...

This study examines the effect of product market competition on managerial disclosure of earnings forecasts using large reductions in U.S. import tariff rates to identify an exogenous increase in competition for domestic firms in U.S. product markets. Our difference-in-difference estimations...

Using a proprietary database of institutional investors' daily stock trading records in the post-Regulation FD period, this study examines whether transient institutions have the independent ability to correctly process small negative earnings surprise announcements, which management claims...

We assess the impact of Reg FD on the trading behavior of transient institutional investors in the quarter prior to a bad news break in a string of consecutive earnings increases. Bad news breaks are defined as breaks that are by growth firms, preceded by longer strings of consecutive earnings...