Very few countries require directors to be financially literate. This article investigates the determinants of boards' financial expertise using a sample of 95 non-financial French listed firms. We construct a measure of financial expertise based on educational and career background data for 943...

Is earnings management affecting (driving) the measures of earnings conservatism? If discretionary accruals were on average negative, earnings management practices would be enhancing the association between bad news periods earnings and returns, whilst the opposite would occur in good news...

Accounting for research and development (R&D) costs is an open issue. SFAS n°2 mandates that all R&D costs are immediately expensed. International standards prescribe a capitalization of R&D costs if they meet certain criteria (IAS 38). The cost method is perfectly objective and verifiable. The...