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The purpose of this paper is to study the relation between financial analysts’ ratings of firms’ disclosure policies and the intraday pattern in spreads between specialists’ bid and ask price quotes.

Measure of the disclosure policy is based on financial analysts’ ratings of the quality of firms’ annual reports, quarterly and other information, and investor relations activities. The bid‐ask spread is the ask price minus the bid price. Time‐weighted bid‐ask spreads were measured over half‐hour trading intervals. Generalized method of moments is used to estimate regressions of bid‐ask spreads on disclosure policy ratings and controls for trading volume, price volatility, and share price.

It was found that spreads are uniformly lower for firms with higher‐rated disclosure policies in all half‐hour trading intervals during the day. In addition, increases in spreads in the first two half‐hours of trading are smaller for firms with higher‐rated disclosures. Finally, our evidence suggests spreads increase more in the last half‐hour of trading for firms with better disclosure policies, and subsequent tests suggest this is due to greater end‐of‐day liquidity trading.

These results suggest that disclosure policy is a determinant of both the level and pattern of intraday bid‐ask spreads. Firms with higher‐rated disclosure policies have a more liquid market for their shares, which is theoretically linked to a lower cost of capital. In addition, better disclosure mitigates the decrease in market liquidity typically observed at the open of daily trading.

Better disclosures can help reduce market frictions.

This paper is the first to study the relation between disclosure policy and intraday spread patterns.

This study examines the market valuation of the unearned revenue liability reported by a sample of newspaper and magazine publishers. The evidence indicates that stock prices behave as if the unearned revenue liability represents an economic asset overall. It is further shown that the market valuation of the unearned revenue “asset” is increasing in the magnitude of advertising relative to circulation revenue. After controlling for advertising revenue inflows, reported unearned revenue is negatively related to stock price, indicating that the economic asset is valued in part on its liability characteristics. These results have direct implications for the FASB's current deliberations on revenue and liability recognition.

Outlines the role of the conservatism inherent in generally accepted accounting principles in Ohlson’s (1995) and Feltham and Ohlson’s (1995) valuation models and compares it with other research findings. Identifies potential sources of conservatism (e.g. expensing advertising costs, providing for deferred tax etc.), develops a mathematical model and applies it to 1980‐1994 US data to examine their relative importance. Finds that intensity of R&D and age of fixed assets are the most significant and goes on to compare the effectiveness of the Feltham/Ohlson conservatism parameter in capturing this information. Shows that their linear information models seems to capture different aspects of the relationship between book and market values and calls for further research.

This study investigates the impact of the enhanced continuous disclosure regime introduced in December 2002 on several measures of information risk in NZX‐listed stocks. We employ two microstructure models and an intraday data set to measure information risk in a sample of 71 stocks. Our empirical results show that the reforms enacted in December 2002 had no significant effect on either the level of information‐based trading or the adverse selection component of market spreads in our sample of NZX‐listed stocks.

This paper investigates the market response to the poor quality of reporting on the first mandated set of conflict minerals disclosures in the US setting. The authors examine the reaction for both filing firms at their filing date and non-filing companies at the filing deadline.

The authors use standard market model methods to capture investor response and test for differences across reactions using comparisons of means and regression models. The authors also code reports for a sub-sample of firms and test for the relation between disclosure and market reactions.

The authors document a significant negative reaction for both filing and non-filing firms, with the latter group suffering a more negative reaction than the filers. The authors also find more extensive disclosure is associated with less negative market reactions. Finally, the authors provide evidence supporting the argument that the more pronounced reaction for the non-filers is due to concerns with incremental implementation costs for these firms.

The results extend prior research into investor perceptions of exposures to social and political costs. The findings suggest that investors view both poor quality disclosure and lack of response to mandated requirements as increasing such exposures.

The negative market response could be expected to exert additional pressures on companies to better assess and report on conflict mineral exposures in their supply chains.

The findings suggest investors pay attention to the corporate response to mandated social disclosure requirements, an important finding as mandates for similar types of disclosure appear to be in the offing.

This study is the first to extend the social and political cost exposure literature to analysis of mandated social disclosures.

In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the statistic that 1 out of every 59 children had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Young children with ASD have unique needs specifically related to the characteristics that impact their communication and social emotional and behavioral development. These unique needs require early and intensive intervention to minimize their lifelong impact. It is important to identify and use evidence-based interventions to help parents support their children at home, and as a continuation of the skills they are being taught in other settings. This chapter will address the prevalence of young children with ASD, the impact and need for family involvement in intervention, and service provision and potential interventions.

The innovations in this volume instill a sense of optimism about how special education professionals might improve outcomes for students with disabilities. Although many interventions illustrate scientific progress toward an evidence-based profession, many special educators may find it challenging to discriminate between scientifically validated innovation and various fads. While innovation reflects the gradual progress of science, fads usually arise suddenly and lack an evidentiary foundation. Some fads may persist over time but without supportive evidence. We present several reasons why we believe special educators adopt fad interventions during an era when scientifically validated special educational practices are readily available. We propose that fads and similar unsubstantiated practices likely will be a persistent problem for special educators. A conservative and judicious approach to adopting “the next big thing” therefore seems important to an evidence-based special education.

This chapter provides evidence-based supports for communication, social skills, and for using restricted patterns of interests and activities educationally for students with autism. Supports for receptive language, expressive language, Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), visual supports, social narratives, and augmentative and alternative communication are included. Discussion on evidence-based social supports include using peer-mediated instruction and intervention, video modeling, and support for inclusive education. Supports for restricted patterns of behavior, interests, and activities cover how to include special interests, rituals, and routines in educational planning and how to recognize when restricted patterns of behavior are detrimental to education. Repetitive behaviors associated with anxiety and self-injury are also discussed. All supports can be combined and address more than one characteristic or need.

This chapter provides evidence-based supports for special education transition services for students with autism. Visual supports, video modeling, and other related strategies used in the transition from school to adult living are included. Discussion includes using evidence-based transition strategies with students who have autism, fostering self-determination in students with autism during the transition process, and clear examples of how technology can support the transition process. Practitioners may combine the transition supports presented in this chapter because each support addresses more than one characteristic or need.

Despite recent advances, neither organizational studies nor the scholarship on economic resilience has systematically addressed how the ecologies of organizations that populate local economies can serve as infrastructures for responding proactively to economic shocks. Using county-level data, this study analyzes relationships between the prevalence of organizational alternatives to shareholder value-oriented (SVO) corporations within a particular locality and its unemployment levels during and after the Great Recession. The results support the hypothesis that the presence of such alternative organizations can enhance the capacities of local economies to resist and recover from recession shocks. Cooperative, municipal, and community-based enterprises, research universities, and nonprofits more generally were associated with greater resistance to the recession shock and stronger recoveries – specifically, lower surges in unemployment rates from 2007 to 2010 and greater reductions in unemployment rates from 2010 to 2016. By contrast, SVO corporations were associated with greater surges in unemployment and perhaps weaker recoveries. Providing a proof of concept, this study opens up new lines of inquiry for organizational studies by linking organizational ecologies to the promotion of collective efficacy and a more broadly shared prosperity in economic life.