Using a database of more than 180,000 private companies from 2000 to 2009, we find that the benefits of holding more cash vary substantially with a firm’s size and the conditions it faces. Cash holdings matter most for small firms: when there are negative shocks to industry or macroeconomic...

I investigate: (i) Agency problems between debt and equity holders, and their impact on capital structure and investment policy; (ii) Agency problems between firm managers and capital providers.The first chapter, "Investment and Financing under Reverse Asset Substitution", shows that banks place...

Target-Date Funds (TDFs) facilitate retirement planning by varying asset allocation over time with the goal of reducing portfolio risk. We explore potential agency problems in TDFs by examining their return performance and flow-performance relation. We find that TDFs under-perform balanced funds...

A number of studies in the prior literature have found a link between cash flow and firm investment [Hubbard (1998) and cites therein]. Findings of most of these studies have the caveat that cash flow could simply be capturing expectations of future profitability because the empirical proxy...

In 1912 it was an iceberg that brought about the demise of the Titanic, 89 years later it was the submerged components that sank the 'unsinkable' Enron vessel. The lessons of that fateful voyage cast a stark metaphoric reminder of the difficulties inherent in maintaining the goal congruence of...

The two objectives of this thesis are to investigate the magnitude of compliance with AASB 6 Exploration for and Evaluation of Mineral Resources and AASB 136 Impairment of Assets; and to examine the influence of audit quality on the compliance levels utilising data from 305 Australian mineral...

We investigate whether the use of a high quality auditor and increased regulatory monitoring of R&D reporting influence both the level of R&D expenditure capitalized by Australian companies from 1992 to 2002 and the market’s perception of the reliability of these figures. The results indicate...

Zhongtianqin, the largest Chinese auditor in 2000, collapsed in 2001 owing to its audit failure. This study examines how the market reacted to the audit scandal in the Chinese institutional setting. Chinese investors are entitled to recover their investment losses from auditors owing to audit...

This study analyzed the influence earnings management, corporate governance mechanisms, and quality audits of the financial performance of companies listed on stock exchanges in Indonesia since 2004 until 2007 up to 2007. The study also aims to find out where the benchmark had the most...

I examine the association between earnings quality and audit firm type using a three-tiered audit firm classification scheme which allows for an explicit examination of the quality of Second-Tier audited earnings. My tests are motivated by the lack of competition in the market for audit...