In this paper, I draw parallels between the literatures on the effects of law on the financial development of countries and on the effects of accounting standards on financial reporting outcomes. My central thesis is that these literatures are complementary in terms of what they have to say...

We evaluate the literature that, for standard-setting purposes, assesses the usefulness of accounting numbers on their stock market value association. For several reasons we conclude the literature provides little insight for standard setting. First, the association criterion has no theory of...

Ball Robin and Wu (2003) investigate the relationship between accounting standards and the structure of other institutions on the attributes of the financial reporting system. They find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that beyond accounting standards, the structure of other institutions,...

Although stock options are commonly observed in chief executive o±cer (CEO) compensation contracts, there is theoretical controversy about whether stock options are part of the optimal contract. Using a sample of Fortune 500 companies, we solve an agency model calibrated to the company-specific...

[...]We also concentrate our survey on literature that testseconomic hypotheses within samples of U.S. firms. However,we believe that much of our discussion can be generalized tofirms throughout the world. Bushman and Smith (2003)present a broad overview of how differences in...

Although stock options are commonly observed in chief executive o±cer (CEO) compensation contracts, there is theoretical controversy about whether stock options are part of the optimal contract. Using a sample of Fortune 500 companies, we solve an agency model calibrated to the company-specific...