I examine whether a strategic focus on data analytics is associated with improvements in firms' internal information quality. Using textual analysis of firm disclosures to identify a data analytics strategy, I first document that firm, leadership, and operating environment characteristics are all important determinants of the decision to adopt a data analytics strategy. I next use operating and financial reporting outcomes to infer whether a data analytics strategy improves internal information quality. I find that a data analytics strategy is associated with enhanced operating efficiency, as adopting firms invest and utilize existing resources more efficiently. I also find that a data analytics strategy is associated with more accurate management forecasts. These results, collectively, are consistent with a data analytics strategy improving firms' internal information quality. Lastly, I corroborate and extend my findings with job postings data, and the results suggest that firm leadership signals their support for data analytics initiatives through disclosure.

The long search for accounting principles has tended historically to be practice ‐and standards‐oriented. It is the author's contention that accountants might do better to think of themselves first and foremost as being involved in an intellectual discipline. Concern should be with subject matter , the nature of theory employed to handle problems dealing with that subject matter , and the methodology to be employed in verifying that theory. What has been put forward as a revolution in accounting thought in recent years may in this context come out as something more evolutionary in nature. We have: (1) useful extensions in subject matter — Information Economics and Agency Theory in particular; and (2) a sometimes healthy emphasis on and sometimes unhealthy obsession with empiricism in both macro (security market) and micro (choice decision) research. In fact, concern with both positive and normative questions, and employment of both logic and empiricism in our thinking, are essential in the study and practice of our discipline. The best of new thinking would seem to be complementary with , rather than a substitute for the best of what has gone on before. Résumé. La longue quête de «principes comptables» a été orientée historiquement vers la pratique et les normes. De l'avis de l'auteur, les comptables feraient mieux de se considérer comme œuvrant tout d'abord au sein d'une discipline intellectuelle. L'intérêt devrait porter sur le sujet , la nature de la théorie utilisée afin de prendre en charge les problèmes reliés audit sujet , et la méthodologie à être utilisée dans la vérification de cette théorie. Ce qui a été avancé dans les dernières années comme une révolution de la pensée comptable pourrait donner lieu dans ce contexte à quelque chose d'une nature plus évolutionniste. Nous possédons (1) des prolongements utiles dans le sujet — particulièrement l'économique de l'information et la théorie mandant‐mandataire; et (2) parfois une saine importance et à l'occasion une obsession malsaine de l'empirisme, accordées à la fois aux recherches de type macro (marchés financiers) et micro (décisions et choix des individus). De fait, le souci pour à la fois des questions positives et normatives, et l'utilisation dans notre réflexion à la fois de logique et d'empirisme, sont essentiels à l'étude et à la pratique de notre discipline. Les meilleurs aspects de la nouvelle pensée devraient être un complément plutôt qu'un substitut aux meilleurs aspects de l'approche antérieure.

This study examines the association between an index of compliance with the fund model and bond risk measures. Several additional factors were posited to be associated with bond risk and to be correlated with the fund index. These variables were included in the analysis to control for possible spurious results. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that the fund accounting model provides information associated with creditor decisions. The fund index was negatively correlated with systematic and total bond risk after controlling for other factors. The index contributed marginally in explaining the variation in measures of risk for a sample of 214 cities. The results were insensitive to several alternative models that were examined but that are not reported in detail in the study. Résumé. Cette étude porte sur le lien entre un indice de conformité au modèle de comptabilité par fonds et les mesures de risque obligataire. Plusieurs facteurs étaient supposés être reliés au risque obligataire et correlés avec l'indice de fonds. Ces variables ont été incorporées à l'analyse afin de contrôler la possibilité de résultats trompeurs. Les résultats ont révélé une cohérence avec l'hypothèse voulant que le modèle de comptabilité par fonds fournisse de l'information reliée aux décisions des créanciers. L'indice de fonds était correlé négativement au risque obligataire, systématique et total, en contrôlant l'effet des autres variables. L'indice n'a pu expliquer*** la variation des mesures de risque pour un échantillon de deux cents quatorze municipalités. Les résultats n'ont pas été affectés par l'utilisation de diverses variantes de modèles qui, sans avoir été l'objet d'un compte rendu détaillé, furent examinés dans le cadre de cette étude.

A game theoretic model of the relationship between an information evaluator and a decision maker is formulated, and interdependence analysis is employed to decompose the game into several components. Each of these components represents one aspect of the interdependence relationship experienced by the information evaluator and decision maker. The analysis is then employed to distinguish among game forms. Résumé. Un modèle de la théorie des jeux établissant une relation entre un évaluateur d'informations et un décideur est proposé, et l'analyse d'interdépendance est utilisée afin de décomposer le jeu en plusieurs parties. Chacune de ces composantes représente une facette de la relation d'interdépendance vécue par l‘évaluateur d'informations et le décideur. Par la suite, l'analyse sert à établir une distinction parmi les “formes de jeu”.

The high social costs of financial crises imply that economists, policymakers, businesses, and households have a tremendous incentive to understand, and try to prevent them. And yet, so far we have failed to learn how to avoid them. In this article, we take a novel approach to studying financial crises. We first build ten case studies of financial crises that stretch over two millennia, and then consider their salient points of differences and commonalities. We see this as the beginning of developing a useful taxonomy of crises – an understanding of the most important factors that reappear across the many examples, which also allows (as in any taxonomy) some examples to be more similar to each other than others. From the perspective of our review of the ten crises, we consider the question of why it has proven so difficult to learn from past crises to avoid future ones.

Excessively easy bank credit – visible in unusually small credit risk spreads and rapid loan growth – is often posited as a root cause of unsustainable asset price booms. This paper considers whether an increase in bank risk tolerance drove high loan growth that coincided with Florida's land boom of the mid-1920s, the first Florida housing boom in which buyers from around the nation participated. Estimates suggest that an astounding 20 million lots were offered for sale in Florida at that time. Our detailed narrative and empirical evidence suggest that the facts do not require the assumption of increased risk appetite during the boom. We find that most Florida banks that failed were associated with the Manley-Anthony chain and did not exhibit increases in observable indicators of risk during the boom. Instead, their increases in risk mainly reflected hidden choices either to lend to bank insiders on a preferential basis or to fund other banks that were engaged in such risky and often fraudulent activities. Bank regulators seem to have been complicit in the hidden risk-taking. Even informed investors would have been left in the dark about the amount of risk that was growing in Florida.

We analyze financial contracting in start-ups backed by corporate venture capitalists (CVCs). CVCs' strategic goals can economically hurt or benefit the start-ups, depending on product market relationships between start-ups and CVC parents. Empirically, start-ups receive funding from both complementary and competitive CVC parents. However, start-up insiders commonly limit the influence of competitive CVCs, awarding them lower board power, while retaining higher board representation for themselves. Second, lead CVCs receive lower board representation, indicating heightened concerns about their greater influence in start-ups' early stages. Finally, start-ups extract higher valuations from competitive CVCs, reflecting greater moral hazard problems. Overall, CVC strategic objectives affect their early inclusion in VC syndicates, their control rights and share pricing.

We analyze the potential competitive effects of the proposed Basel II capital regulations on US bank credit card lending. We find that bank issuers operating under Basel II will face higher regulatory capital minimums than Basel I banks, with differences due to the way the two regulations treat reserves and gain-on-sale of securitized assets. During periods of normal economic conditions, this is not likely to have a competitive effect; however, during periods of substantial stress in credit card portfolios, Basel II banks could face a significant competitive disadvantage relative to Basel I banks and nonbank issuers.

This paper examines how financial markets responded to the longest circuit breaker in American financial history: the four-month suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange following the outbreak of World War I. The suspension that began on July 31, 1914 fostered a substitute trading forum called the New Street market. Trading on New Street began almost immediately and offered economically meaningful liquidity services despite its impaired price transparency. A simple cross-sectional model of bid–ask spreads on New Street demonstrates that New Street liquidity responded to economic incentives. New Street's success implies that, from a public policy perspective, expensive back-up trading facilities are not required to preserve liquidity during a trading suspension in established markets. Back-up records of share ownership and transfer facilities, however, are crucial to maintaining liquidity.