Beginning in 2007, UK public companies were required to issue quarterly, rather than semiannual, financial reports. But the UK removed this quarterly reporting requirement in 2014. We studied the effects of these regulatory changes on UK public companies and found that the frequency of financial reports had no material impact on levels of corporate investment. However, mandatory quarterly reporting was associated with an increase in analyst coverage and an improvement in the accuracy of analyst earnings forecasts.

Corporate executives have long decried the undue emphasis on short-termism - defined as maximizing corporate profits in the next quarter. Instead, most corporate executives say that they want to make corporate investments from a long-term perspective - defined as enhancing corporate value over a period of three to five years (Rappaport 2006). This concern about favoring short-termism over long-termism has now spread to institutional investors (Perrin 2016). In an open letter, Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock, warned US companies that they may be harming their long-term value by capitulating to pressures from activist hedge funds to increase dividends or share buybacks in the short term (Fink 2015). In response, commentators and regulators have proposed a broad range of remedies to curb short-termism in corporate America (Pozen 2014). These proposals include, but are not limited to, higher taxes on short-term trading, faster filings for groups acquiring more than 5% of a company's voting stock, reduced say by institutional investors in managerial decisions, and increased voting rights for shareholders based on the length of their holding period.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering the pros and cons of moving to semi-annual reporting from quarterly reporting at least for certain segments of the market. However, documenting causal evidence on the consequences of mandatory quarterly reporting has been difficult, due to either the absence of a clear exogenous shock or older data. We exploit the start of mandatory quarterly reporting by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2007 and the end of the requirement in 2014 in the United Kingdom to examine corporate and capital market behavior. After imposition of mandatory quarterly reporting in 2007, we find (i) a dramatic decline in the number of companies that issue reports with quantitative information (defined as including both sales and earnings numbers for the quarter); (ii) a substantial increase in companies announcing managerial guidance for the upcoming year's earnings or sales; and (iii) an increase in analyst following for all sample companies. However, using a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that the imposition of mandatory quarterly reporting has virtually no impact on firms' investment decisions. Companies that voluntarily moved back from quarterly to semi-annual reporting after 2014 have experienced a reduction in analyst coverage, but no detectable increases in their levels of corporate investments.

An innovative new valuation framework with truly useful economic indicators The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers shows how the ubiquitous financial reports have become useless in capital market decisions and lays out an actionable alternative. Based on a comprehensive, large-sample empirical analysis, this book reports financial documents' continuous deterioration in relevance to investors' decisions. An enlightening discussion details the reasons why accounting is losing relevance in today's market, backed by numerous examples with real-world impact. Beyond simply identifying the problem, this report offers a solution—the Value Creation Report—and demonstrates its utility in key industries. New indicators focus on strategy and execution to identify and evaluate a company's true value-creating resources for a more up-to-date approach to critical investment decision-making. While entire industries have come to rely on financial reports for vital information, these documents are flawed and insufficient when it comes to the way investors and lenders work in the current economic climate. This book demonstrates an alternative, giving you a new framework for more informed decision making. Discover a new, comprehensive system of economic indicators Focus on strategic, value-creating resources in company valuation Learn how traditional financial documents are quickly losing their utility Find a path forward with actionable, up-to-date information Major corporate decisions, such as restructuring and M&A, are predicated on financial indicators of profitability and asset/liabilities values. These documents move mountains, so what happens if they're based on faulty indicators that fail to show the true value of the company? The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers shows you the reality and offers a new blueprint for more accurate valuation.

This paper examines the impact of a transparency regulation on stock price informativeness, stock crash risk, and financial reporting quality. Specifically, it focuses on the Transparency Directive (TPD), a key securities regulation implemented by the EU countries in recent years, which strives to increase and improve the flow of firm-specific information by mandating broader disclosure requirements, including greater reporting frequency by public companies listed in the EU member countries. Using a sample firms from 25 EU countries during the 2001-2010 time period, I find robust evidence that stock price informativeness improved, crash risk declined, asymmetric timeliness of loss recognition increased, and good news timeliness declined, following the implementation of TPD. I find inconclusive evidence on the impact of TPD on accrual quality. I also find mixed evidence on the role of regulation, implementation and enforcement of TPD in explaining the relation of TPD with stock return synchronicity, crash risk, and financial reporting quality. Specifically, I find the increase in asymmetric timeliness of loss recognition and a decline in good news timeliness are driven by countries with strong TPD implementation and enforcement efforts. However, I do not find that a decline in synchronicity and crash risk is affected by the level of regulation or TPD enforcement. Overall, my study provides evidence that mandatory securities regulation aids in improving transparency.

The 2017 Home Capital saga represents the shortcomings of a financial system challenged by distinct, siloed regulatory frameworks that fail to communicate with each other. Home Capital is a publicly traded company that acts as a lender through the Home Trust Company, most often providing mortgages to clients rejected by traditional banks. Home Capital’s 2017 announcement that it required $2 billion to sustain a $600-million loss shook customer confidence, and fueled by allegations of corruption, the company suffered a rapid decline in stock price. The Home Capital crisis is the most recent pre-pandemic example of systemic risk in the financial sector in Canada and highlights the invaluable opportunity we have to avoid repeating past mistakes in the nearing post-pandemic economic reality. Using the 2017 Home Capital saga as a starting point, Dangerous Opportunities sheds light on the compartmentalization of regulators and its greater ramifications on board independence and corporate governance, taxation in the competitive housing sector, and the success of non-bank financial institutions in various jurisdictions. A hybrid of law and business, Dangerous Opportunities is a must-read for those interested in the underbelly of financial institutions and is an inspired read in the aftermath of the recent housing crisis, which saw many aspiring homeowners seek dangerous opportunities outside of the traditional banking system.