This short essay is based on a presentation at the panel discussion on “The Most Incorrect Beliefs in Accounting” at the American Accounting Association Meetings in 2012. It addresses the inordinate amount of attention given in the literature to accounting's role in providing new information...

Not surprisingly, the recent accounting scandals look different when viewed from the perspectives of the political/regulatory process and of the market for corporate governance and financial reporting. We do not have the opportunity to observe a world in which either market or...

I use the first-time enforcement of insider trading laws in sixteen countries as a shock to enforcement and examine its influence on timely loss recognition (TLR). Consistent with greater enforcement increasing the usefulness of accounting information in contracts and thereby the demand for...

We examine earnings management practices of insider controlled firms across twenty-two countries to shed light on the link between consumption of private benefits and earnings management. Insider controlled firms are associated with more earnings management than non-insider controlled firms in...

Prior studies find inconsistent evidence regarding the effect of CEO equity incentives on financial misreporting. We argue that this inconsistency stems from not considering detection mechanisms that mitigate the effect of equity incentives on misreporting by limiting the ability of managers to...