We use changes in firm officers and external auditors to examine the relative influences of these parties on annual report textual disclosures. Using a sample of public companies that file XBRL-tagged financial statements with the SEC between 2011 and 2018, we find that changes in chief...

We examine the effect of Big 4 auditors on management's use of optimistic language in audited financial statement disclosures. While regulators and practitioners consider the audit of disclosures to be increasingly important, empirical evidence of an auditor's effect on management's qualitative...

Initial public offering (IPO) companies are exempt from Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, leaving investors to assess the quality of an IPO company's internal controls, which affect the quality of management-provided financial information, without an opinion on internal controls...