We use confidential, U.S. Census Bureau, plant-level data to investigate aggregation in external reporting. We compare firms' plant-level data to their published segment reports, conducting our tests by grouping a firm's plants that share the same four-digit SIC code into a “pseudo-segment.”...

For a sample of U.S. firm years spanning the time period 1980 through 1996 we document a positive association between the excess value of diversification as defined by Berger and Ofek [1995] and security analyst ratings of voluntary disclosure as developed by the Association for Investment...

We evaluate the manner in which sponsors of highly leveraged asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) conduits responded to FASB Interpretation No. 46 (FIN 46), Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities an Interpretation of ARB No. 51, and its Canadian counterpart Accounting Standards Board of...

In this study, we examine managers' decision to report segment-level profit on a before-tax or after-tax basis. A consequence of defining segment-level profit on an after-tax basis internally is that segment-level tax expense must be disclosed in the financial statements. Consistent with the...

We investigate whether characteristics of firms' debt structure, beyond leverage, are associated with predictable variation in conditional conservatism. The contracting theory of conservatism holds that conditional conservatism is an efficient mechanism employed by an organization to address...