Bank regulators and academics have long conjectured the beneficial effects of smoothing in loan loss provisions (i.e., making higher provisions during good times so as to avoid doing so during bad times) for bank lending and stability, while accounting regulators express concerns about its...

We describe the challenges of forecasting earnings in a globally interconnected marketplace, and we document inefficient use of information regarding foreign country exposures and expected country GDP growth at the consensus and individual forecast levels. A country's proximity to the US,...