We document widespread adoption of adjustments to earnings for performance evaluation; 84% of our sample of S&P 1500 firms use adjusted earnings for bonus compensation. We find that the transactions removed from adjusted earnings vary widely and include both transitory and non-transitory items....

This study investigates the effect of real earnings management on two important aspects of earnings quality: earnings persistence and its informativeness about future cash flows. I focus on real earnings management through the abnormal reduction in discretionary expenditures and investigate how...

We examine the disclosure of non-GAAP earnings information in quarters containing transitory gains to investigate whether the primary motivation for these managers to disclose non-GAAP earnings is to inform or mislead. In this setting, non-GAAP earnings are more informative than GAAP earnings,...

We investigate the change in the aggregate earnings-returns relation from negative to positive. We first identify a gradual structural break around the second quarter of 1991. We then find evidence of three contributing factors to the change in the relation. They are: i) an increase in the...