This paper explores some consequences for economic efficiency of creative accounting practices by merging companies. It assumes semi-strong information efficiency in the markets for capital and for corporate control; and/or the use of executive contracts relating pay to accounting profit. Ahead...

Earnings management by acquirers ahead of share for share bids may affect whether a bid succeeds, and hence which management team controls the target's assets, as well as the distribution of gains between target and acquirer shareholders. This paper tests for such earnings management for the UK,...

We describe analytically commercial bank behavior focusing on actions banks take in response to economic gains and losses on their assets to meet regulatory leverage requirements. Our analysis shows that absent differences in regulatory risk weights across assets, leverage cannot be procyclical....