Theory predicts that the accounting information transparency affects credit spreads. Given that one of the putative benefits of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is transparency of accounting information, this study evaluates the impact of IFRS on the pricing of credit spreads in the over-the-counter Credit Default Swap (CDS) market. Using a difference in differences methodolog...

Regulation G requires all companies to quantitatively reconcile pro forma earnings with GAAP earnings. This paper provides three findings related to the impact of reconciliations on mispricing of pro forma earnings. First, prior to Reg G, we find that mis-pricing of pro forma earnings is limited to firms with low reconciliation quality. There is no evidence of mispricing for firms with high rec...

igh quality services have been shown to be directly linked to increased market share, profits and savings, and generally, service quality is also recognized as a corporate marketing and financial performance driver. Specifically, patients' quality perceptions have been shown to account for 17-27 per cent of variation in a hospital's financial measures such as earnings, net revenue and asset ret...

The quality of financial analysts’ equity research is pivotal for an efficient capital market. This study investigates the quality of earnings forecasts and stock recommendations for initial public offerings (IPOs) in Germany. The empirical study includes 12,605 earnings forecasts and 6,209 stock recommendations of individual analysts for the time period from 1997 to 2004. The focus of this stu...

The evidence that earnings rise with firm size and that human capital affects earnings based on labour market data are two of the most robust empirical findings in economics. In contrast the evidence for scale economies in firm data is very weak. The limited direct evidence of human capital on firm productivity suggests that human capital is indeed productive and that the magnitudes are consist...

Most empirical analyses of human capital have concentrated solely on the quantity of schooling attained by individuals, ignoring quality differences. This focus contrasts sharply with policy considerations that almost exclusively consider school quality issues. This paper presents basic evidence about the very substantial impacts of school quality on individual earnings and on economic growth. ...

A large literature has focused on estimating the returns to schooling and has typically done so by incorporating institutional heterogeneity in quality along merely one dimension (such as average SAT scores). Using longitudinal survey data of registrants for the GMAT exam and school level information from other sources, we create, in the context of graduate management education, multiple indice...