ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
1. Information content; New information leads to a change in the stock price; this explains the stock return behaviour; (Ball and Brown (1968)); they considered data for 20 years; stock prices are influenced by accounting data; data is given in annual reports; upto 55% stock price can be explained by Annual reports and the other remaining 45% is due to other sources (Budget, CEO’s status etc.); the market reacts to all data; of the total information set, the accounting information plays a major role.
2. Market efficiency; post earnings announcement drift; Foster, Olsen and Shevlin (1975); there are 2 schools one that believes in the market efficiency and one that doesn’t; the protagonist of market efficiency argue that the regulator also is not required as market is the best judge, As per Foster, stock prices move after earnings are announced, Abnormal returns do they exist or not? Transaction cost prohibits one from making abnormal returns.
3. Cash versus Accrual; Basu (1997), Conservatism, market impounds bad news faster than good news, the market is conservative.
4. Accounting measurement and value relevance; Barth (1994), Fair Value Accounting, mark to market, market can understand fair value.
5. Voluntary Disclosure, Skinner (1994), why do companies disclose bad news more than good news, despite the fact that you have to please the capital market Litigation pressure experienced by US Firms, If the stock price changes by 20% + , the company must have suppressed information;
Botosan (1997) more disclosure means that cost of equity decreases.
6. Accounting choice and debt contracts, Holthaus ...