<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">ABSTRACT</heading>A principal-components analysis demonstrates that common earnings factors explain a substantial portion of firm-level earnings variation, implying earnings shocks have substantial systematic components and are not almost fully diversifiable as prior literature has concluded. Furthermore,...

In an efficient capital market, asset prices vary when investors change their expectations about cash flows, discount rates, or both. Using dividends to measure cash flows, previous research shows that the aggregate dividend-price ratio varies due to changes in expected discount rates (returns)...

Not surprisingly, the recent accounting scandals look different when viewed from the perspectives of the political/regulatory process and of the market for corporate governance and financial reporting. We do not have the opportunity to observe a world in which either market or...

<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">ABSTRACT</heading>We quantify the relative importance of earnings announcements in providing new information to the share market, using the "R"-super-2 in a regression of securities' calendar-year returns on their four quarterly earnings-announcement "window" returns. The "R"-super-2, which averages...

We investigate the role of accrual accounting in the asymmetrically timely recognition (incorporation in reported earnings) of gains and losses. Timely recognition requires accruals when it precedes complete realization of the gains and losses in cash. We show that nonlinear accruals models...