This thesis comprises of three essays. The first essay is titled ‘Do Acquiring Firms Manage Earnings?’ and is co-authored with Professor Anand M. Vijh. The second essay is titled ‘Do Firms Have a Target Leverage? Evidence from Credit Markets’ and is joint work with Professors Anand M. Vijh and Redouane Elkamhi. The third is essay is single authored and titled ‘Bondholder Wealth Effects of Fraud...

Download pose: Postactivation barriers to oncology clinical trial accruals are well documented; however, pol barriers prior to trial opening are not. We investigate one such barrier: trial development time. erimental Design: National Cancer Institute Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP)–sponsored for all therapeutic, nonpediatric phase I, I/II, II, and III studies activated between 2000 and...

This study examines whether China’s weak institutional environment results in lower-quality audits by the Big 4 firms. We find that the Big 4 assign their less experienced partners to companies that are listed only in China compared with clients cross-listed in Hong Kong. The Big 4 are less likely to issue modified audit reports, and they charge lower audit fees for clients that are listed only...

We examine the impact of national culture on earnings. Specifically, we managers’ likelihood using accrual or real earnings management (REM) and role various attributes (accruals quality, persistence, smoothing, predictability). measure Hofstede’s six dimensions (1984, 2001, 2010). Using data from 36 countries during 1997–2018, find that managers are likely to use both accruals REM in high powe...

This study presents the first targeted examination of changes in financial reporting surrounding the appointment of both new CEOs and Principal Financial Officers (PFOs). We identify companies that appoint new CEOs and PFOs in the period 1995 to 2002 and find that the change in discretionary accruals is negative and significant in the year of hire (from t-1 to t) for firms appointing a new CEO ...

This paper investigates whether earnings management occurs in non-profit hospitals. Using manually collected financial data of the foundation hospitals in Taiwan over the period from 2006 to 2008, I find non-profit hospitals tend to manage earnings to a range just above zero by examining the distribution of reported income on a sample of 45 hospitals and 133 hospital-year observations. The stud...