Most bank merger studies do not control for hidden bailouts, which may lead to biased results. In this study we employ a unique data set of approximately 1000 mergers to analyze the determinants of bank mergers. We use undisclosed information on banks’ regulatory intervention history to distinguish between distressed and non-distressed mergers. Among merging banks, we find that improving financial profiles lower the likelihood of distressed mergers more than the likelihood of non-distressed mergers. The likelihood to acquire a bank is also reduced but less than the probability to be acquired. Both distressed and non-distressed mergers have worse CAMEL profiles than non-merging banks. Hence, non-distressed mergers may be motivated by the desire to forestall serious future financial distress and prevent regulatory intervention.

We examine whether lenders use analyst forecasts of the borrower's earnings as inputs when establishing covenant thresholds in private debt contracts. We find that, among debt contracts that include an earnings covenant, earnings thresholds are set closer to analyst forecasts when analysts have historically issued more accurate earnings forecasts. These results are robust to firm fixed effects and an instrumental variable approach. Further, we find that, following a plausibly exogenous decline in the availability of analyst earnings forecasts, debt contracts are less likely to include earnings covenants. Our evidence is consistent with lenders using analyst earnings forecasts as an input when establishing debt covenant thresholds and suggests sell-side analysts play a role in debt contracting.

We show that a mid-2000s increase in extraterritorial enforcement of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), characterized by greater international regulatory cooperation and more frequent use of the FCPA's accounting provisions, has a significant deterrent effect on foreign direct investment in high-corruption-risk countries. The decrease in investment is at least as large for non-U.S. as for U.S. firms, suggesting that widespread extraterritorial enforcement helps to create a level foreign investment playing field. Firms under U.S. jurisdiction with fundamental characteristics that make it more difficult to maintain effective internal controls invest less in high-corruption-risk countries after the FCPA enforcement increase, suggesting regulatory compliance costs play a role in deterring investment. Consistent with investments in accounting systems being one way, firms limit enforcement risk when investing in high-corruption-risk countries, firms pursuing new investments spend more time evaluating potential targets, and firms with existing investments report fewer restatements related to unintentional errors.

We investigate how XBRL adoption affects smaller institutions' access to financial statement information relative to their larger counterparts. We examine three aspects of trading responsiveness: abnormal trading volume, response speed to 10-K information, and decision to trade immediately following the 10-K filing. With regard to all three aspects of trading responsiveness, we find that small institutions' responsiveness to 10-K news increases significantly more relative to the change experienced by large institutions from the pre- to post-XBRL periods. We further document that small institutions' stock picking skills in the 10-K filing period increase more compared to those of large institutions following the regulation. Our results are robust to a battery of falsification and sensitivity tests. Collectively, our results suggest that the informational playing field between small and large institutions has become more even following the SEC's XBRL mandate.

Contracting parties, such as the firm and its supplier, have cost-reducing incentives to make investments that support the unique transactions between them. However, to the extent that one party may renege on its contractual obligations, the other party incurring the cost of the relationship-specific investment bears additional risk and is less willing to invest such that sub-optimal investment occurs. In countries where enforceability of explicit contracts is particularly weak, parties have incentives to signal their willingness to fulfill implicit claims and maintain long-term relationships. We predict that firms engage in income smoothing to send such a signal to their suppliers. Consistent with these expectations, we find that firms that both reside in countries with weak contract enforceability and operate in industries with a greater need for relationship-specific investments tend to smooth reported income more. We further decompose income smoothing into “informational” and “garbled” components and find that results are driven by the informational component of income smoothing. Our results support the important role that accruals play in providing information in the presence of incomplete contracts.

Using a new database that contains accounting data for a large sample of U.S. private firms, we provide an investigation of financial reporting quality (FRQ) of U.S. private versus public firms. We find that in general public firms have higher accrual quality and are more conservative. The results are consistent with public firms' reporting reflecting greater demand for financial information. However, these reporting qualities of public firms are mitigated or eliminated in settings where public firms are more likely to manage earnings or face reduced demand for their financial information. Our study contributes not only to the current debate on private versus public financial accounting, but also to the broader literature attempting to understand the determinants of FRQ.

Prior research demonstrates that knowledge of unaudited balances biases auditors' expectations during analytical procedures. What is less understood is how these biases affect auditors' subsequent investigations and their conclusions about the reasonableness of a particular balance. We employ the selective accessibility model to examine the differences in analytical procedure performance when auditor expectations are formed with versus without knowledge of the client's unaudited financial statement balances. In an experimental setting, we found that auditors with knowledge of unaudited balances favored hypotheses and supporting information indicating that the client's balance was reasonably stated. Auditors who formed expectations without current-year figures were more willing to evaluate competing alternatives, could better identify the most pertinent information, and were significantly more likely to identify a material misstatement using an analytical procedure. Data Availability: Data are available from the authors on request.

This article comments on inventory pricing and changes in price levels. Ideally, the measurement of accounting profit involves the matching precisely of the identified costs of specific units of product with the sales revenues derived there from. Secondly, where conditions are such that precise matching of identified costs with revenues is impracticable, identified cost matching may be simulated by the adoption of an assumed flow of costs. Also, a flow assumption can be realistic, in that it reflects the dominant characteristics of the actual flow of goods; thus it may reflect an actual dominance of first-in, first-out, average, or last-in, first-out movement. A flow assumption can be artificial, on the other hand, in that it premises a flow of costs that is clearly in contrast with actual physical movement. However, the periodic income of a business enterprise is computed by deducting from the revenues of the period the costs which are properly associated with those revenues. In the case of certain costs, for example sales commissions, the relationship to the revenues of a period is quite direct and the matching process is accomplished with a minimum of uncertainty.

This article discusses the information on the paragraph no. 5. The Paragraph No. 5 under "Expense" in the 1948 Revision of Accounting Concepts and Standards Underlying Corporate Financial Statements of the U.S. reads that An assignment of all or a portion of the cost of an asset to expense, made in good faith after considered judgment and after competent review, in accordance with the accounting concepts and standards of the time, is not subject to reversal in a later period. Errors of a mechanical and non-judgment nature should be corrected in the period of their discovery. The Committee on Concepts and Standards is in agreement with the apparent basic purpose of this statement to reduce the possibility of manipulation of the net income calculation through reversals, revisions and reaccounting of past depredation charges and other amortizations. At the same time it recognizes that a position unalterably opposed to the correction of errors of judgment is both arbitrary and difficult to defend.

Using proprietary data on stock loan fees and quantities from a large institutional investor, we examine the link between the shorting market and stock prices. Employing a unique identification strategy, we isolate shifts in the supply and demand for shorting. We find that shorting demand is an important predictor of future stock returns: An increase in shorting demand leads to negative abnormal returns of 2.98% in the following month. Second, we show that our results are stronger in environments with less public information flow, suggesting that the shorting market is an important mechanism for private information revelation.