This paper provides evidence to show that in the presence of imperfect formal institutions there is both a substitutional and a complementary relationship between accounting information and reputation, an informal institution. Empirical results using a sample of family firms listed in the Chinese A-share stock market from 2004 to 2007 show that in China, where the legal environment is far from ...

Pooled time-series, cross-sectional data on 110 Australian companies over the period 1992-1998 is employed to examine whether the trademarked variant of residual income known as economic value-added (EVA) is more highly associated with stock returns than more conventional accounting-based measures. These other measures of internal and external performance include earnings, net cash flow and res...

This study examines how human capital externalities affect audit markets in U.S. cities. A high level of human capital is predicted to improve the quality of labor in all audit firms, but a stronger effect is expected for the more “locally tied” non-Big 4 audit offices. Consistent with this, the quality of audited earnings improves as human capital increases, but the relation is stronger for no...

During the year prior to management buyout (MBOs) announcements, some target firms exhibit abnormally high discretionary expenses in selling, general and administration, abnormally low discretionary accruals, and realize losses from asset sales. Higher discretionary expenses and losses from asset sales are associated with lower pre-MBO abnormal stock returns, especially for firms with higher in...

The paper examines the role of executive compensation in inducing management behavior that triggers private securities litigation. Incentive pay in the form of options is found to increase the probability of securities class action lawsuits, holding constant a wide range of other firm characteristics. In contrast, base pay levels and share ownership do not have a significant impact on lawsuit i...

This paper establishes a link between firms' capital investment decisions, the quality of the information they provide to a competitive market for their shares, and their cost of capital. We show that, if firms select projects to maximize share price, higher information quality reduces the cost of capital. The intuition is that better information improves the coordination between firms and inve...

This paper studies the e¤ects of capacity utilization on accounting pro…t margins and stock returns. Since accounting pro…t margins represent the average pro…t per unit and not the economists’ concept of unit contribution margin, the marginal/variable pro…t per unit, a …rm with idle capacity can increase its pro…t margins by increasing sales (output). However, if the …rm is operating at full ca...

Previous literature documents that foreign firms cross-listed in the U.S. Stock Exchanges experience an improvement in the information environment. This paper disputes the idea that cross-listing per se increases the quality of the firm information environment by considering whether this enhancement depends on the effective adoption of stricter rules. As research setting, we use Section 302 of ...

This paper examines the relation between earnings management and corporate governance in China by introducing a tunneling perspective. We document systematic differences in earnings management across the universe of China's listed companies during 1999–2005, and empirically demonstrate that firms with higher corporate governance levels have lower levels of earnings management. We study two Chin...

Faceless trading in a secondary stock market not only redistributes wealth among investors but also generates information that guides subsequent real decisions. We provide a disclosure model that reflects both functions of the secondary market. By partially preempting traders’information advantage established from information acquisition, disclosure reduces incentives for privately acquiring in...