SYNOPSIS: This study examines the association between chief executive officer (CEO) age and the financial reporting quality of firms. The financial reporting qualities examined are the meeting or beating of analyst earnings forecasts and financial restatements. Based on extant research, we hypothesize that older CEOs are associated with higher-quality financial reporting. Using a sample of 3,413 firms for the period 2005 to 2008, we find a positive association between CEO age and financial reporting quality. Specifically, we find that CEO age is negatively associated with firms meeting or beating analyst earnings forecasts and financial restatements. Our study therefore extends the corporate governance and financial reporting quality literature by identifying CEO age as a determinant of financial reporting quality. Data Availability: Data are publicly available.

This study investigates the association between bankruptcy outcome and the capital market's reaction to bankruptcy filings. Our sample consists of 77 firms that filed bankruptcy petitions between 1980 and 1996. We investigate whether, at the time of bankruptcy filing, the market differentiates between firms that are subsequently liquidated and firms that are subsequently reorganized. Our results indicate that liquidated firms have significantly larger negative price reactions at bankruptcy filing than reorganized firms. This result holds after controlling for a going-concern audit report in the period prior to bankruptcy filing, a technical or debt service default in the period prior to bankruptcy filing, firm size, prior Wall Street Journal announcement of a possible bankruptcy filing, firm financial condition, and other predisclosure information. Our findings suggest that the market has a high degree of insight into the subsequent bankruptcy resolution.

This study investigates whether the stock market differentiates between firms that file bankruptcy petitions for strategic reasons and firms that file bankruptcy petitions for financial reasons. We perform both univariate and regression tests on a sample of 245 firms that filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions between 1981 and 1996. After controlling for bankruptcy outcome, probability of bankruptcy, firm financial condition, and firm size, we find that, in the period around bankruptcy filing, firms that file bankruptcy petitions for financial reasons have significantly larger stock price declines than firms that file bankruptcy petitions for strategic reasons. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

In this paper, we examine the association between auditor industry specialization and the disclosure of internal control weaknesses (ICWs) by firms that filed first-time Section 404 reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).Using both univariate and logistic regression analyses, we find that firms audited by industry specialist auditors are more likely to report ICWs than firms audited by non-specialist auditors. Our results therefore provide further evidence that industry specialist auditors are quality differentiated.