The overall complexity of financial disclosures affects the ability of anyone reading the financial statements, including stockholders, regulators, and investors, to analyze and assess the information presented. One way to measure complexity of disclosures is by determining accounting reporting complexity … Continue reading
Category Archives: Academia
EU Statutory Audit Reform
Audit Analytics was recently cited in a study commissioned by the European Parliament, EU Statutory Audit Reform: Impact on costs, concentration and competition. The authors, Marlene Willekens, Simon Dekeyser, and Ines Simac of KU Leuven and BI Norwegian Business School, … Continue reading
Academic Literature Review – Changes in Accounting Estimates
In theory, accounting is supposed to be black and white, with binary decision-making processes and no wiggle room. In practice, however, not all figures shown in financial statements are unequivocal. In some cases, the lines are blurry because transactions are … Continue reading
How to Predict Which Acquisitions Will Fail and Generate Negative Stock Returns
Summary of Key Findings It can be difficult to predict which acquisitions are going to fail An academic article using Audit Analytics’ data identified statistically significant negative abnormal returns of 12% for a subset of acquisitions that were excluded from … Continue reading
Literature Review: “The Effect of Enforcement Transparency: Evidence from SEC Comment-Letter Reviews”
In recent years, more attention has been given to policies surrounding transparency in financial reporting practices, such as banks disclosing results of stress tests and the recently proposed “Public Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) Enforcement Transparency Act of 2017”. In 2004, … Continue reading
Audit Analytics for the Classroom
Audit Analytics has become an integral part of the accounting research community. Cited in numerous scholarly papers and used by over 260 universities worldwide, Audit Analytics is a leading source for examining public company disclosures, issues, and trends. Audit Analytics provides … Continue reading
Is the SEC Captured? Evidence from Comment Letter Reviews
In this post, we look at a recent academic paper titled “Is the SEC Captured? Evidence from Comment-Letter Reviews”. Using Audit Analytics’ SEC Comment Letter database, the authors, Jonas Heese, Mozaffar Khan, and Karthik Ramanna, research if having political connections (PC) creates a … Continue reading