This study examines whether application of IFRS by non-US firms results in accounting amounts comparable to those resulting from application of US GAAP by US firms. IFRS firms have greater accounting system and value relevance comparability with US firms when IFRS firms apply IFRS than when they...

This paper examines capital market effects of changes in securities regulation. We analyze two key directives in the European Union (EU) that tightened market abuse and transparency regulation and its enforcement. All EU member states were required to adopt these two directives, but did so at...

We examine whether firms have increased their timely loss recognition with the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) across Europe since 2005. We estimate firm-specific asymmetric timeliness using the Khan and Watts (2009) C-score, which accounts for size,...

This paper investigates stock analysts’ earnings forecasts under complex corporate ownership in China. Based on a sample of 1298 firms for years 2004–2011, our evidence suggests that state shareholding is negatively related to the quality of consensus analysts’ earnings forecasts. In...

In recent years, reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) became mandatory in many countries. The capital-market effects around this change have been extensively studied, but their sources are not yet well understood. This study aims to distinguish between several...

I examine the short- and long-term impact of the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) on cross-listed foreign private issuers. Both short- and long-term test results suggest that the costs of SOX compliance significantly exceed its benefits and reduce the net benefits of cross-listings.

In this paper, we investigate how firm reporting incentives and institutional factors affect accounting quality in firms from 26 countries. We exploit a unique multicountry setting where firms are required to comply with the same set of international reporting standards. We develop an approach...

We discuss “Mandatory IFRS Reporting and Changes in Enforcement” by Christensen, Hail, and Leuz (CHL, in this issue). We begin by discussing CHL in the context of prior literature, and subsequently discuss the research design, results, and inferences. CHL seeks to contribute to the...

This study examines the profitability of trading on earnings surprises in the post-earnings-announcement period in the Chinese stock market from 1994 to 2009. We find that a post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD) anomaly exists in China. When earnings surprise is defined relative to analyst...

This study examines the profitability of trading on earnings surprises in the post-earnings announcement period for Canadian equities spanning the period 1994–2009. There is clear evidence that stock prices drift in the direction of earnings surprise for several months following an earnings...