By examining the flow of the value-relevant information in annual earnings into stock price, we provide evidence that is consistent with the proposition that insiders of Southeast Asian companies controlled by the richest families are particularly aggressive in trading on their proprietary...

We draw on the investor protection literature to identify structural factors in the financial reporting environment that are likely to explain cross-country differences in the information content of annual earnings announcements. Using data from over 50,000 annual earnings announcements in 26...

This research empirically examines the interaction between the choices of inventory accounting method and capital structure through a parsimonious test of the predictions from the signaling model of Hughes Schwartz and Thakor (1994). We find that the debt of firms remaining at FIFO decreases...

Using both large-sample tests and a detailed analysis of annual reports, we examine whether the recognition of income from special items is consistent with smoothing and/or big-bath behavior. Consistent with smoothing by firms with large earnings increases and big-bath behavior by firms with...

The theory of tax clienteles for dividend policies predicts that tax-exempt/tax-deferred and corporate investors will increase their ownership of the equity of firms that initiate a cash dividend as these investors purchase shares of stock that are being sold by individual investors for whom...

We study whether the interaction between U.S. tax rules and inflation increases the real U.S. corporate tax burden because tax deductions based on historical cost are not inflation-indexed. We extend prior literature by using new models to examine this prediction. We find a significantly...

We find that a firm's dividend yield has a positive impact on its common stock return that is decreasing in the level of institutional and corporate ownership, our indicator of whether the marginal investor in a firm's common stock is more likely to be a low-tax or a high-tax investor. These...

This paper compares the value of political ties and market credibility in China by examining the consequence of corporate scandals. We categorize Chinese corporate scandals by whether the scandal is primarily associated with the destruction of i) the firm’s political networks (political...

We investigate whether and how an exogenous and unprecedented improvement in non-U.S. firms’ financial reporting quality affects post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD). We find that PEAD declines after the information shock, and this decrease is more pronounced for firms with fewer...

We examine the impact of corporate board reforms on firm value in 41 countries. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that firm value increases after enactment of the reforms. The valuation increase is associated with both the intensity and major components of the reform, including...