Coletti, Sedatole, and Towry (2005) provide seminal evidence that controls can increase trust and cooperation. Garrett, Livingston, and Tayler (2018) replicate and extend Coletti et al. (2005), providing evidence that the results extend to different tasks and to individuals in non-interactive...

The frequency of special items has increased dramatically over time, offering a convenient conduit for the inappropriate classification of past, present, and future recurring expenses as non-recurring. Identifying this misclassification is especially important in light of the pervasive use of...

We examine whether the strength of internal control over financial reporting (internal control) reduces the expropriation of resources from the firm by managers and controlling shareholders. Although we have ample evidence from prior literature that internal controls reduce errors in financial...

This paper focuses on a sample of 261 companies that have disclosed at least one material weakness in internal control in their SEC filings after the effective date of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Based on the descriptive material weakness disclosures provided by management, we find that poor...

We examine the relation between accruals quality and internal controls using 705 firms that disclosed at least one material weakness from August 2002 to November 2005 and find that weaknesses are generally associated with poorly estimated accruals that are not realized as cash flows. Further, we...

The frequency of special items has increased dramatically over time, offering a convenient conduit for the inappropriate classification of past, present, and future recurring expenses as non-recurring. Identifying this misclassification is especially important in light of the pervasive use of...

This paper examines the classification of items within the income statement as an earnings management tool. Evidence is consistent with managers opportunistically shifting expenses from core expenses (cost of goods sold and selling, general, and administrative expenses) to special items. This...

We examine stock sales as a managerial incentive to help explain the discontinuity around the analyst forecast benchmark. We find that the likelihood of just meeting versus just missing the analyst forecast is strongly associated with subsequent managerial stock sales. Moreover, we provide...

CFO resignations are becoming more common among publicly traded firms. We use sudden deaths of CFOs as an exogenous shock to CFO departures to examine how a CFO’s sudden departure affects firm financial reporting quality. We find that when a CFO dies suddenly, the likelihood the firm will...

We examine the association between managerial overconfidence and internal controls. We hypothesize and find that firms with overconfident managers are more likely to maintain ineffective internal controls. Moreover, we find no evidence that these managers are more able to mitigate the known...