Calls for eliminating differences between accounting earnings and taxable income in the US have been debated extensively. Proponents of increased book-tax conformity argue that tax compliance will increase and earnings quality will improve. Opponents argue that earnings quality will decline. We examine whether the level of required book-tax conformity affects earnings persistence and the association between earnings and future cash flows. We develop a comprehensive book-tax conformity measure and find that earnings have lower persistence and a lower association with future cash flows when conformity is higher. Our evidence suggests that increased book-tax conformity may reduce earnings quality.

Abstract We use short interest as an investor-based measure of over- or undervaluation that distinguishes between the misvaluation and Q-theories of mergers. Using this measure, we find that misvaluation is a strong determinant of merger decision-making. Firms in the top quintile of short interest are 54% more likely to engage in stock acquisitions and 22% less likely to engage in cash acquisitions. Stock (but not cash) acquirers have higher short interest than their targets. Overall, our results suggest that the previously documented underperformance of stock acquirers and the overperformance of cash acquirers can be explained by misvaluation, as captured by short interest.

ABSTRACT We survey a broad group of professionals who use financial statements as part of their job to assess the extent to which they believe financial reports suffer from disclosure overload. Consistent with the claims made by regulators, auditors, and preparers, we find that a significant portion of professional financial statement users believe disclosure overload is a problem. However, this group is in the minority, with about twice as many professional users believing that overload is not a problem and that more information should be disclosed in financial statements. This dichotomy presents a difficult challenge to standard setters aiming to improve financial reporting by altering the amount of information provided in financial reports. To that end, we complement existing research on the informativeness of accounting information by measuring perceptions of the usefulness of the various financial statements and their footnotes across a variety of tasks. Finally, we develop a framework that could be useful in developing a theory of disclosure overload.

In this study we investigate the usefulness of historical accounting reports (10-Ks and 10-Qs) by examining four settings where we expect investors to acquire historical reports in order to obtain qualitative and quantitative information that contextualizes and conditions information released in the current period. Using a novel dataset that tracks user requests for accounting reports stored in the SEC EDGAR database, we find that requests for historic reports during the fiscal year are positively associated with financial reporting complexity and that requests around earnings announcements are positively associated with accounting discretion and negative earnings shocks (particularly for conservative firms). Finally, we find that daily requests for historical reports are positively associated with shocks to firm value (particularly negative shocks). Overall, our evidence suggests that historical reports make up an important component of the information mosaic assembled by investors.

Abstract Each year, the NCAA basketball tournament (March Madness) is a daytime distraction for millions of people, providing a largely exogenous shock to investor attention. We investigate whether March Madness influences the market response to earnings by diverting investor attention away from earnings news. We find that the price reaction to earnings news released during March Madness is muted. This result generally holds across several samples and additional analyses. We also find that the result is more muted for low institutional ownership firms, consistent with the effect being driven by less‐sophisticated investors. Furthermore, we find that it takes the market 30 to 60 days to correct for the distraction effect. Overall, we provide a unique test of the theory of limited attention by documenting that extraneous events can have a significant impact on the pricing of earnings.

Abstract Using a novel data set that tracks all web traffic on the SEC 's EDGAR servers from 2008 to 2011, we examine the determinants and capital market consequences of investor information acquisition of SEC filings. The average user employs the database very few times per quarter and most users target specific filing types such as periodic accounting reports; a small subset of users employ EDGAR almost daily and access many filings. EDGAR activity is positively related with corporate events (particularly restatements, earnings announcements, and acquisition announcements), poor stock performance, and the strength of a firm's information environment. EDGAR activity is related to, but distinct from, other proxies of investor interest such as trading volume, business press articles, and Google searches. Finally, information acquisition via EDGAR , both to obtain earnings news and to provide context for it, has a positive influence on market efficiency with respect to earnings news. Overall, our results are important because they provide a unique, user‐based perspective on investor access of mandatory disclosures and its impact on price formation.

Motivated by evidence from the empirical accounting and finance literatures suggesting that short sellers target firms with suspect financial reporting, we investigate whether short interest provides a signal of the degree of audit risk. We find a positive association between audit fees and short interest (total shares sold short scaled by total shares outstanding) after controlling for other determinants of audit fees. This finding suggests that short interest is an indicator of audit risk that reflects information not captured by traditional client risk measures. We also find an increase in the magnitude of the association between audit fees and short interest after events in the early 2000s (corporate scandals, the collapse of Arthur Andersen, and the implementation of new auditing standards) which increased auditors’ responsibilities to deter fraud and made the implications of fraud particularly salient to external auditors. Our findings are important because they suggest that auditors’ sensitivity to client risk information increased post-2002, indicating that efforts by regulators and standard setters (e.g., the PCAOB and the AICPA) to increase auditors’ attention to risk have been successful.