Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires every company to report on the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting. Section 404 has arguably been the most controversial provision of SOX, with many registrants complaining that the high cost of compliance outweighs its...

We examine twelve-month returns following disclosure of first-time going concern (GC) opinions in the U.S. and Australia. We find no evidence of significant negative abnormal returns associated with GC opinions in Australia. In the U.S., negative abnormal returns subsequent to GC opinions are...

We study the impact of derivatives on stock characteristics such as valuation, price efficiency, and liquidity. We resolve the endogeneity issue faced in the extant literature by using an order issued by the Indian market regulator that resulted in delisting of 51 stocks from the derivative...

We find a model that uses both financial statement and market information is an unambiguously superior predictor of bankruptcy than the going concern (audit) opinion. However, the audit opinion has incremental predictive ability for bankruptcy beyond both financial statement and market-based...

We examine whether firms that frequently issue quarterly earnings guidance behave myopically, where myopic behavior is defined as sacrificing long-term growth for the purpose of meeting short-term goals (Porter [1992]). We find that dedicated guiders invest significantly less in research and...

We examine the effect of Regulation FD on stock return volatility. Critics suggest FD has increased volatility by causing firms to (a) disclose less information, resulting in increased noise trading and pricing errors; or (b) substitute essentially continuous communication to the market through...

We examine whether Regulation FD is associated with changes in the information environment prior to earnings announcements. After implementation of Regulation FD we find (a) lower return volatility around earnings announcements; (b) some improvement in the speed with which pre earnings...

We model a two-period pure exchange economy where a risk averse manager, who has private information regarding future earnings, is required to issue an earnings report to investors at the end of each period. While the manager is prohibited from directly disclosing her private information, she is...