We analyze a comprehensive sample of more than 10,000 U.S. stocks in the OTC market. As little is known about this market, we first characterize OTC firms by trading venue and provide evidence on survival, success, frequency of venue changes, reporting status, and trading activity. A large...

We examine whether more sophisticated accounting methods (in the form of accrual accounting) interacts with other information sources and the pledging of collateral to reduce information asymmetries between small business borrowers and lenders, thereby lowering borrowers' probability of loan...

In this paper, we use accounting fundamentals to measure systematic risk of distress. Our main testable prediction—that this risk increases with the probability of recessionary failure, P(R|F)—is based on a stylized model that guides our empirical analyses. We first apply the lasso method to...

Using a large sample of business groups from more than one hundred countries around the world, we show that group information matters for parent and subsidiary default prediction. Group firms may support each other when in financial distress. Potential group support represents an off-balance...

Prior research documents that firms tend to beat three earnings benchmarks: zero earnings, last year's earnings, and analyst's forecasted earnings, and that there are both equity market and compensation-related benefits associated with beating these benchmarks. This study investigates whether...

This paper assesses whether two popular accounting-based measures, Altman's (1968) Z-Score and an O-Score derived from Ohlson (1980), effectively summarize publicly-available information about the probability of bankruptcy (PB). According to option-pricing theories (Black and Scholes, 1973,...

Previous studies of corporate stock repurchase programs found low efficiency (high execution cost), questionable performance (inconsistent profitability), idiosyncratic transaction reporting (monthly cost reports may not match actual monthly transactions), archaic shareholder accounting...

This study documents a subtle and counter-intuitive interaction between operating cash flow (CFO) and accruals, and their association with future stock returns. While the two strategies should by construction capture similar anomalies, we find evidence in two large stock markets that they appear...

We examine the impact of the alignment of internal control mechanisms (governance and management control systems) with external control mechanisms on market valuation and operating performance for 1,693 firm observations over the period 2000-2006 in high versus low-growth industries. The...

This paper estimates the impact of accounting transparency on the term structure of CDS spreads for a large cross-section of firms. Using a newly developed measure of accounting transparency in Berger, Chen amp; Li (2006), we find a downward-sloping term structure of transparency spreads....