In this dissertation, I examine investors' use of balance sheet information to infer earnings management constraint and the extent to which they utilize that information to assess the quality of subsequent earnings surprises. Ex-ante constrained firms may not have sufficient ability to manage earnings towards desired earnings thresholds and thus their reported earnings surprises are more likely to be the result of real performance. Ex-ante flexible firms, however, have more room to manage earnings and so it becomes less clear to investors whether the reported earnings surprises are the result of real performance or earnings management. My tests provide mixed support for the constraint theory. I find evidence that the market reacts more to small positive earnings surprises when they are reported by ex-ante constrained firms than when reported by ex-ante flexible firms. This suggests that the market interprets the earnings surprise reported by constrained firms to be of higher quality. However, I also find that earnings surprises reported by ex-ante constrained firms are no more persistent with regard to one-year-ahead earnings than those reported by ex-ante flexible firms, a result that is not consistent with the differential reaction to earnings surprises.

This paper studies how proficiency in host countries’ official languages affects immigrants’ earnings in destination countries. An earnings gap is found between Canadian-born and immigrant workers in Canadian labor market. Taking advantage of rich information about language use from the Ethnic Diversity Survey, language spoken at work, home, EDS interview, with friends, spouses and children are included in an attempt to reduce the earnings gap. Among all languages examined, individuals who speak English have the highest earnings in each context. Results also show that language spoken at home has the greatest effects on immigrants’ earnings in Canada as the gap is eliminated when home languages are controlled in the model. Immigrants who speak English at home benefit from extra practice with families, which helps them become more fluent faster. Potential policy implication implies both timely and monetary investment in language training is useful for helping immigrants settle down in Canada. / N/A

This thesis analyses the impact on productivity, employment, overtime, earnings and costs of shorter working hours with particular reference to the 1989/91 campaign by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU). The events leading up to the CSEU campaign and the reasons for its success are investigated. One result of this union success was the end of national bargaining. The changing role of national bargaining, including why it became a casualty of reduced hours, is also examined. Research on earlier reductions in hours has tended to suggest that productivity rises as a result of reduced hours. A review of this research concludes that the productivity effect of reduced hours has been overstated. It also raises some important methodological issues. The thesis presents research on 20 engineering plants where the 37-hour week was introduced as a result of the CSEU campaign. A variety of managers and union representatives were interviewed. In addition there was a survey of engineering plants. This included plants with unchanged hours. Finally, the effect of unions on working hours in the whole economy is explored using a large data set. The research finds that when engineering hours were reduced hourly earnings typically rose so that weekly pay was unaffected, at least in the short-term. While measures to increase productivity were a feature of collective agreements on reduced hours, there is little evidence that productivity has been permanently increased by reduced hours. The productivity-increasing measures would in general have been agreed without reduced hours, albeit somewhat later in many cases. There is even less evidence that reduced hours have affected output and overtime than there is of a productivity effect. So, increased employment is left as the major consequence of reduced hours. The recession, which was at its most serious when reduced hours were implemented, had a much larger effect on employment. This makes the employment effect of reduced hours hard to observe as it mainly took the form of job retention. Increased costs may well mean that the employment effect of reduced hours is a little less than it would otherwise have been.

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I investigate the way in which Australian managers issue their earnings forecasts, and the impact this has on the reaction of equity investors and security analysts. Using a sample of 233 management earnings forecasts issued from 1994 to 2001, I find that managers are more likely to issue earnings forecasts when they have bad earnings news than good earnings news. I find that a vast majority of forecasts are ???framed??? by the use of an accompanying earnings benchmark. Forecasts are issued with varying degrees of specificity (or precision) and also with variation in additional accompanying disclosures. Forecasts issued with negative framing (forecast earnings less than benchmark earnings) are more likely to be accompanied by statements about factors external to the firm in explaining performance, while forecasts issued with positive framing (forecast earnings greater than benchmark earnings) are more likely to be accompanied by additional verifiable forecasts of components of earnings. I find the market reaction to earnings forecasts released with positive framing is higher than for forecasts released with negative framing, after controlling for forecast news and other forecast properties. I also examine security analysts??? forecasts around the release of management earnings forecasts and find that after the release of a management earnings forecast, analyst activity increases, but that analysts??? forecasts become less accurate and more biased. Neither the extent of analyst activity nor changes in analysts??? forecast accuracy or bias is related to forecast framing.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on July 31, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Church, Bryan; Committee Member: Comiskey, Eugene; Committee Member: Haizheng, Li; Committee Member: Kuang, Xi; Committee Member: Schneider, Arnold

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-67).