{"title":"Generative AI in Financial Reporting","authors":"ELIZABETH BLANKESPOOR, ED DEHAAN, QIANQIAN LI","doi":"10.1111/1475-679x.70050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-679x.70050","url":null,"abstract":"Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) will likely alter many aspects of the financial reporting process and spawn a deep stream of academic research. We take an early step by examining the extent to which firms have begun using GAI in one important part of the reporting process: writing disclosures. We begin by evaluating a commercial tool's ability to detect GAI writing in disclosures, and we find that it reliably identifies even very small amounts of GAI usage in realistic samples. We then examine firms’ actual earnings press releases, conference call prepared remarks, risk factors, MD&As, and IPO filings through 2024 and find statistically significant GAI usage in all five disclosure types, with up to 4.5% of new text written by GAI in 2024. Usage is predictably higher in the cross‐section, and filings with higher GAI have systematically different linguistic properties. Our study provides early insights into the use and effects of GAI in financial reporting, and it motivates future research in this evolving area.","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147630710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Determinants of ESG Ratings: Rater Ownership Matters","authors":"Dragon Yongjun Tang, Jiali Yan, Yaqiong Yao","doi":"10.1111/1475-679X.70016","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1475-679X.70016","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examine whether and how common ownership affects Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings—an important research question given the increasing use of these ratings in investment decisions and corporate evaluations. We find that companies with major shareholders in common with the rating agency (“sister firms”) tend to receive higher ESG ratings. When a company becomes a sister firm through a change in the rating agency's ownership structure, its rating from that agency is subsequently upgraded, whereas its ESG ratings from other agencies remain unchanged. Sister firms exhibit greater rating disagreements across agencies than other firms. The higher ESG ratings for sister firms are partly attributable to the transfer of immaterial positive ESG information through common owners. The common ownership effect is more pronounced when the owner can exert a greater influence on the rating agency. Moreover, sister firms with initially elevated ratings demonstrate poorer future ESG performance. Overall, our findings suggest that owners can affect ESG ratings of their portfolio companies in a way consistent with their influence and interest.</p>","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"64 2","pages":"1087-1130"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1475-679X.70016","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ben Lourie, Alexander Nekrasov, Phong Truong, Chenqi Zhu
{"title":"Do Earnings Announcements Affect Employee Spending? Evidence from Transaction Data*","authors":"Ben Lourie, Alexander Nekrasov, Phong Truong, Chenqi Zhu","doi":"10.1111/1475-679X.70027","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1475-679X.70027","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Leveraging micro-level data on individual employees’ bank and credit card transactions, we examine the impact of earnings announcement (EA) news on employee spending. Utilizing an event study methodology, we find strong evidence that EA news elicits significant reactions in employee spending. These reactions are stronger for employees located in the firm's headquarters state, with longer tenure, possessing investment experience, or earning higher wages, consistent with these employees being more likely to attend to their firm's EAs. The reactions are also stronger for the fourth fiscal quarter than interim quarters, suggesting that year-end results garner greater employee attention. Furthermore, consistent with media facilitating employee processing of EA news, the reactions are stronger for EAs covered by a larger number of news articles. Finally, in line with the notion that EAs contain information about employees’ future cash flows, we find that EA news predicts changes in employee wages and that employees with higher past wage-to-EA news sensitivity exhibit stronger spending reactions. Overall, our findings provide evidence of the role of financial reporting in employees’ spending decisions.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"64 2","pages":"979-1020"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145447277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strategic (Inconsistent) Disclosures and Sophisticated Investors: Evidence from Hedge Funds","authors":"YICHANG LIU, JOSHUA MADSEN, FRANK S. ZHOU","doi":"10.1111/1475-679X.70013","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1475-679X.70013","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recent SEC regulations require that qualified hedge fund advisers provide their investors with narrative disclosures of their business and operations. We find that 40% of these disclosures omit or de-emphasize information regarding advisers' operational and investment risks when compared to other sources of public information. Funds with such “inconsistencies” are associated with predictably lower fund performance but do not differ in their fund flows, flow-performance relation, ownership structure, or management fees. These results are consistent with investors being subject to limited strategic thinking, which prevents them from fully unraveling the implications of strategic omissions. This, in turn, contributes to advisers' successful use of discretion to de-emphasize information with adverse performance implications. Our findings suggest that information processing frictions can facilitate nondisclosure, even in markets with sophisticated investors.</p>","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"64 2","pages":"923-978"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1475-679X.70013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144983403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Macroeconomic Information Acquisition Around Earnings Clusters","authors":"ELIA FERRACUTI, GARY LIND","doi":"10.1111/1475-679X.70020","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1475-679X.70020","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Research shows that investors acquire and process less firm-specific information on days when many firms announce earnings (hereafter earnings clusters). We show that investors gather more <i>macroeconomic</i> information during earnings clusters, that this behavior is amplified during negative economic shocks and concurrent macroeconomic announcements, and that these information acquisition patterns have implications for equity valuations. Our findings are consistent with the benefit of extracting macroeconomic information from earnings announcements increasing during earnings clusters, which we confirm empirically. Thus, our results help explain why investors focus less on individual firm news during earnings clusters: They rationally redirect their attention to the most beneficial information.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"64 2","pages":"721-761"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JENNI KALLUNKI, JUHA-PEKKA KALLUNKI, WAYNE LANDSMAN, EMMA-RIIKKA MYLLYMÄKI, LASSE NIEMI
{"title":"Family Matters: Exploring the Link Between Parental and Executive Financial Misconduct","authors":"JENNI KALLUNKI, JUHA-PEKKA KALLUNKI, WAYNE LANDSMAN, EMMA-RIIKKA MYLLYMÄKI, LASSE NIEMI","doi":"10.1111/1475-679X.70028","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1475-679X.70028","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Using a novel data set of misconduct records for Finnish CEOs and directors and their parents, we explore whether corporate executives’ financial misconduct is associated with similar behavior by their parents. Controlling for various other factors of executive financial misconduct, we find that executives are significantly more likely to engage in financial misconduct, including accounting, tax, and other financial offenses, if their parents have a history of financial misconduct. This intergenerational association is stronger when the parental misconduct is more severe. Additional findings reveal that growing up in high-misconduct municipalities and cohabiting with spouses who engage in financial misconduct are also associated with a higher likelihood of executive misconduct, indicating that such behaviors may be shaped by broader socialization processes that extend beyond the immediate family. Although our analyses do not establish causal relationships, the collective evidence presented in this study offers insights into why some corporate executives engage in misconduct while others do not.</p>","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"64 2","pages":"561-632"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1475-679X.70028","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145553593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aggregated Compensation Peer Group Disclosure and Managerial Labor Market Competition: A Network Analysis","authors":"RAY RUI GAO, YIFEI LU","doi":"10.1111/1475-679X.70026","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1475-679X.70026","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, we develop novel measures of managerial labor market classification and competition by constructing networks of compensation benchmarking peers disclosed in proxy statements. These networks represent firms’ relative positions within the managerial labor market. Our classifications strongly predict executive moves across firms, outperforming a comprehensive set of predictors in the literature. Subsequent tests further demonstrate the strength of our methodology in capturing the multidimensional and dynamic features of the managerial labor market. We also validate our competition measures by showing that they are associated with retention tools, such as higher equity pay and longer pay duration. Finally, we apply our measures to test two theoretical predictions. First, we find that labor market competition could explain controversial pay practices. Second, we demonstrate that the labor market provides managers with tournament incentives to deliver superior future performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"64 2","pages":"831-884"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1475-679X.70026","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145396856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}