Accounting rules for valuing retained interest from securitizations require management to make assumptions concerning discount rates, default rates, and prepayment rates. These assumptions provide management with discretion to determine the "gain on sale" of the receivables. We investigate...

Researchers have used various measures as indications of "earnings quality" including persistence, accruals, smoothness, timeliness, loss avoidance, investor responsiveness, and external indicators such as restatements and SEC enforcement releases. For each measure, we discuss causes of...

Calls for eliminating differences between accounting earnings and taxable income in the US have been debated extensively. Proponents of increased book-tax conformity argue that tax compliance will increase and earnings quality will improve. Opponents argue that earnings quality will decline. We...