The purpose of this study is to identify and explain the differences in the characteristics of earnings management around the world through an examination of quarterly earnings. First, we identify an earnings target in each country. We find that corporations in Finland, Germany, Italy, and Japan...

This research examines how the amendment of retirement benefits accounting affects earnings attributes and corporate management of Japanese companies. The results show that the existing net income before taxes is more persistent, predictable, smoothed, and value relevant, while that the approach...

We examine how two types of conservatism—conditional conservatism and unconditional conservatism—affect corporate investment behavior. Conditional conservatism forces managers to recognize the loss resulting from an investment project on a timely basis. When risk-averse managers are aware...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of voluntary disclosure of `business risk' information (hereafter referred to as `risk information' ), which is a significant determinant of the information environment, on estimating the cost of capital. Recently, some studies indicate that the...

In applying International Accounting Standards (IAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), a disclosure system that consists of four complementary subsystems such as financial information, nonfinancial information, internal control, and auditing subsystems should be designed to...

The objective of this research is to examine the benefits and costs of quarterly disclosures and to accumulate empirical evidence for improving them. In particular, this research focuses on the information usefulness of quarterly disclosures, earnings management in the quarterly financial...