We examine how Regulation FD changed analysts' reliance on firms' public disclosure. Regulation FD is associated with a stronger analyst response to earnings announcements, management forecasts and conference calls—that is, analysts respond to these events more quickly, more frequently and...

We use earnings forecasts from a cross-sectional model to proxy for cash flow expectations and estimate the implied cost of capital (ICC) for a large sample of firms over 1968–2008. The earnings forecasts generated by the cross-sectional model are superior to analysts' forecasts in terms of...

Using hand-collected data on analyst locations, we study how geographic proximity affects analyst coverage decisions for U.S. firms that went public during 1996–2009, along with the impact of local coverage on firm visibility. Analysts are 80% more likely to cover local firms than non-local...

Recent research finds that many analyst recommendation revisions take place shortly after earnings announcements. Altinkilic and Hansen (2009) attribute the clustering of recommendations to analysts strategically piggybacking on earnings information to improve the perceived performance of their...

Prior work finds that managers beneficially time their purchases, but not sales, prior to forecasts. Focusing on if (as opposed to when) a forecast is given, we link insider selling to silence in advance of earnings disappointments. This raises the question of whether the absence of...

We find a negative association between a state׳s fiscal condition and the use of discretion in applying Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) rules to understate pension funding gaps. We also find that the use of discretion is negatively associated with states’ decisions to increase...

We examine the information environments of firms following large, non-recurring charges (“baths”). We test competing hypotheses about the consequences of a bath—a bath either improves the information environment (the transparency hypothesis) or degrades it (the opacity hypothesis)....

This study examines changes in CEOs׳ incentive to manage their firms׳ reported earnings during their tenure. Earnings overstatement is greater in the early years than in the later years of CEOs׳ service, and this relation is less pronounced for firms with greater external and internal...

This paper investigates whether the initiation of trading in credit default swaps (CDSs) on a borrowing firm׳s outstanding debt is associated with a decline in that firm׳s reporting conservatism. CDS investments can modify lenders׳ payoffs on their loan portfolios by providing insurance on...

A large body of accounting research finds that various contracting incentives lead managers to engage in conservative accounting practices. We extend existing research by modeling the impact of extant accounting rules on conservative accounting. Accounting rules typically require assets to be...