Stock price response to new‐CEO earnings news

New‐CEO earnings news exhibits asymmetric effects on stock prices. Stock prices rise more on good earnings news announced by firms with new CEOs compared with those with established CEOs. By contrast, stock prices tend to fall by a smaller amount on bad earnings news for new CEOs. Both the new‐CEO quality effect and the new‐CEO honeymoon effect are more pronounced for CEOs appointed during challenging situations. The new‐CEO quality effect is stronger for firms followed by fewer analysts, while the honeymoon effect is stronger for firms followed by more analysts – illustrating the importance of a transparent information environment.     

Long‐Term post‐merger announcement performance. A case study of Australian listed real estate

This study examines the long‐term postmerger performance of Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (A‐REITs). The A‐REIT sector is used as a case study being less vulnerable to agency issues due to its regulatory structure (Eichholtz and Kok, 2008; Ratcliffe et al., 2009). Research on conventional firms has shown, on average, shareholders are worse off in the long run (Alexandridis et al., 2012). In contrast, we find that shareholders experience significantly positive abnormal returns, after accounting for the financial crisis. This outcome suggests that when managers are restricted with the use of retained earnings and the type of investment, they may be less susceptible to hubris and/or agency issues.     

Transitory earnings components and the two faces of non‐generally accepted accounting principles earnings

Non‐generally accepted accounting principles (non‐GAAP) earnings reporting has been linked with both informative and strategic incentives. We seek to disentangle these conflicting effects by examining the association between non‐GAAP earnings disclosure and transitory items in GAAP earnings, conditional on managers' reporting incentives. We report evidence of a statistically and economically significant asymmetric relation between disclosure propensity and transitory items in GAAP earnings conditional on both the sign and magnitude of the GAAP earnings surprise. Our findings suggest that non‐GAAP earnings disclosures tend to be driven by a desire for informative (strategic) reporting when GAAP earnings beat (undershoot) market expectations.     

Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown [1968] by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown [1968] researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown [1968] to create a body of research on the usefulness, timeliness, and other properties of accounting numbers. We discuss how those paths often link back to the groundwork laid and questions originally posed in Ball and Brown [1968].     

Asymmetric trading by insiders – comparing abnormal returns and earnings prediction in Spain and Australia

This paper examines whether the ‘external governance’ imposed by comparative financial accounting standards reduces the trading advantage of insiders. We do this by directly comparing insider trading returns and insider’s ability to predict future earnings from accruals in Spain and Australia. Results show higher excess returns and greater prediction of future earnings from conditioned insider trading in Australia that is then utilized by financial analysts to lower forecast errors – particularly in contrarian‐based accruals trading. Possible explanations include: (i) a high asymmetric quality for market‐based accruals, (ii) information transfer from informed insiders to uninformed insiders and financial analysts and (iii) a more timely dissemination of financial information in Spain through different ownership and governance structures.     

Underwriter reputation,earnings management and the long‐run performance of initial public offerings

This study contributes to the extant literature on the nature of earnings management surrounding initial public offerings (IPOs) by investigating the role of underwriter reputation. We argue that prestigious underwriters will protect their reputation by carefully monitoring and certifying financial information on IPO firms, thereby limiting any potential earnings manipulation. As a result, those IPO firms that are associated with more prestigious underwriters are likely to exhibit substantially less‐aggressive earnings management. Conversely, we find the existence of a negative relationship between earnings management and the post‐offer performance of an IPO firm’s stocks only for those firms associated with less‐prestigious underwriters.     

Association between Big 4 auditor choice and cost of equity capital for multiple‐segment firms

Prior studies document a negative association between Big 4 auditor choice and the implied cost of equity capital, suggesting that Big 4 auditors mitigate information asymmetry (IA) between shareholders and managers. This study extends this line of research and reports that the negative association is more pronounced in multiple‐segment firms, where IA is more severe than in single‐segment firms. We also find that the association between Big 4 auditor choice and the cost of equity capital becomes more negative as the number of segments increases. Taken together, our findings suggest that the role of Big 4 auditors in reducing the cost of equity capital becomes more significant when greater IA exists.