Companies that go public on global stock markets are not obliged to disclose earnings forecasts in their prospectuses. We use this fact to examine the shipping sector, where most firms issue earnings forecasts during the IPO process, and provide unique, international-level evidence. We find...

In this paper we focus on fair value measurements in the Financial Crisis and its (continuing) aftermath. We consider different ways of measuring fair value; and we use the experience of economies under stress, and where markets deviate significantly from textbook models of symmetric information...

This study hypothesizes and tests whether the degrees to which managers exercise earnings discretion relates to their value system (i.e., culture) as well as the institutional features (i.e., legal environment) of their country. We find that uncertainty avoidance and individualism dimensions of...

We consider forecast guidance as a mechanism that managers use to avoid negative earnings surprises. Modeling forecast guidance using methods by Matsumoto, [Accounting Review 77 (3) (2002) 483-514] and Bartov et al. [Journal of Accounting and Economics 33 (2) (2002) 173-204], we show that...

When equity markets open to foreign investors, firms in these markets face significant opportunities to attract foreign capital. Using a set of countries that opened their equity markets, we find significant income-increasing earnings management in the year of opening, with substantial...

The present paper discusses the role Global Reporting Initiatives in providing the structural framework for environmental accounting, reporting and communicating the environmental aspects of business organisations in Indian scenario and also explains how harmonisation of environmental accounting...

Balance sheet figures must be reliable and need not necessarily be value relevant. In order to protect the company's creditors, and to safeguard the investing public against the possibility of earnings management, intangible assets should only be recognized when the most stringent of standards...

The association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of reported earnings is examined for a large sample of firms from 42 countries. Three attributes of earnings are evaluated: the magnitude of the association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of...

We document how the effectiveness of an accruals-based trading strategy changes with the benchmark used to identify an extreme accrual. We measure “percent accruals” as accruals scaled by earnings, rather than total assets, and show that this seemingly small change produces a radically...

On the basis of accounting and market data for firms and groups listed on German stock exchanges between 1997 and 2003, we show that the value relevance of R&D information under German accounting standards can be superior to that provided by US-GAAP and IAS. The results, obtained while...