Helena Oliveira Isidro

• Ph.D Accounting and Finance
• Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon

The European Commission has recently proposed the introduction of legally binding quotas for women on corporate boards of European companies. This proposal has put the spotlight on the question of whether increasing female representation on the board brings economic benefits to the firm. In order to shed light on the issue, this study investigates...

We provide new evidence on the codependence among the many country attributes previously linked to financial reporting quality. First, we show that the synchronicity of 21 changing country attributes spikes surrounding mandatory IFRS adoption. Thus, while IFRS adoption “explains” increased reporting quality, this finding disappears after including...

We study the market's reaction to the disclosure of non-GAAP earnings measures that are combined with high impression management. We construct an impression management score that captures several communication techniques that managers often use to positively bias investors' perceptions of firm performance. We hand-collect and code both quantitative...

We examine how similarity in institutional, legal, and social characteristics between a firm's and its directors’ home countries, that is, country‐pair homophily, affects foreign director appointments. We estimate a gravity model that includes economic and geographic proximity and find that country‐pair homophily is a significant determinant of for...

We investigate the trading and yield effects of covenant-lite (cov-lite) high-yield bond contracts, which have a restricted (lite) set of covenants. The excluded covenants often are those that use accounting performance measures. Although much research has focused on the potential benefits of accounting as a basis for debt contracting, little is kn...

We examine the role of industry-level product market competition on non-GAAP disclosure decisions. We consider traditional measures of industry competition (concentration, price-cost margin, and set up costs), and large reductions in import tariff rates that identify an exogenous increase in competition. We find that competition intensity influence...

The purpose of this research is to identify the factors that can explain practices of voluntary disclosure of information on intellectual capital (IC). This is an empirical quantitative study that seeks to examine the influence of certain firm characteristics (firm size, auditor type, ownership concentration, industry, proportion of non-executive d...

We study how distress-oriented hedge funds (vulture funds) play an important role in the fresh start valuation of firms emerging from Chapter 11 reorganization. We find that loan-to-own vultures acquire debt positions of the distressed firm that grant dominant power in the bankruptcy negotiations, and they then use the discretion allowed by fresh s...

We adopt a heterogeneous regime switching method to examine the informativeness of accounting earnings for stock returns. We identify two distinct time-series regimes in terms of the relation between earnings and returns. In the low volatility regime (typical of bull markets), earnings are moderately informative for stock returns. But in high volat...

We explain the process and documents that internalise the European Union (EU) Directive No. 2013/34 in Portugal. The Portuguese accounting standard setting body, the Comissão de Normalização Contabilística (CNC), is the entity in charge of the preparation and implementation of accounting standards. As such, CNC was responsible for the implementatio...

We study the market’s reaction to the disclosure of non-GAAP earnings measures that are combined with high impression management. We construct an impression management score that captures several communication techniques that managers often use to positively bias investors’ perceptions of firm’s performance. We hand-collect and code both quantitati...

This research focuses on the relationship between the quality of financial reporting and the level of corporate governance of Brazilian firms, particularly between New Market and Traditional Market. We measure earnings quality based on a widely used accruals model. Governance quality is represented by the type of market the firms chooses to be list...

This article presents the results of an investigation into the state of research in intellectual capital in the Mediterranean context through the analysis of 15 studies published in journals. The purpose of this study is to conduct a survey of papers on disclosure of intellectual capital information in Mediterranean countries. The results show the...

We use hand-collected data for a sample of large European firms to investigate the influence of countries’ institutional and economic factors on managers’ non-GAAP disclosures. We find that managers are more likely to use non-GAAP measures to meet or beat earnings benchmarks that GAAP earnings would miss in countries with efficient law and enforcem...

This study reports international evidence on the impact of compensation and board quality on the voluntary disclosure of non-GAAP earnings numbers. We find that compensation contracts of board directors that are linked to firm's market performance are associated with a higher probability of disclosure of non-GAAP figures in the earnings announcemen...

For the period of 2006 to 2008, we collect Comment Letters issued by the SEC that question the application of US GAAP by US firms or the application of IFRS by European firms registered with the SEC. We investigate whether institutional investors react to the letters by changing their holdings and whether their responses vary for US registrants and...

For the period of 2006 to 2008, we collect Comment Letters issued by the SEC that question the application of US GAAP by US firms or the application of IFRS by European firms registered with the SEC. We investigate whether institutional investors react to the letters by changing their holdings and whether their responses vary for US registrants and...

In this paper, we investigate how firm reporting incentives and institutional factors affect accounting quality in firms from 26 countries. We exploit a unique multicountry setting where firms are required to comply with the same set of international reporting standards. We develop an approach of cross-country comparisons allowing for differences b...

We develop and test accounting-based valuation models for commercial banks. We extend Begley et al.'s framework (2006) and propose a valuation model where goodwill is generated by virtually all commercial and investment banking activities. Key features of our model are: the development of a relation between future cash flows from fee income and the...

The separation between control and ownership in the modern firm creates information asymmetry between managers and shareholders. The superior knowledge about the firm's operations stimulates managers to manage financial information. We investigate which managers characteristics are more likely to positively influence earnings management practices....

We use hand-collected data for a sample of large European firms to investigate the influence of countries' institutional and economic factors on managers' non-generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) disclosures. We find that managers are more likely to use non-GAAP measures to meet or beat earnings benchmarks that GAAP earnings would miss i...

This study reports international evidence of the impact of managers’ compensation and board quality on the voluntary disclosure of non-GAAP earnings numbers. We find that compensation contracts linked to firm performance create incentives to disclose a non-GAAP figure in the press release of the earnings announcement. Furthermore, managers that ben...

This study explores international differences in the use of one non-GAAP earnings measures to meet strategic earnings benchmarks. We hand-collect information on non-GAAP disclosures from earnings announcements press releases and find that the majority of firms report more than one non-GAAP measure in press releases. Our results reveal that all the...

A growing stream of academic literature studies non-GAAP financial measures in the United States, where the Securities and Exchange Commission issued Regulation G. However, there is no rule in Europe to regulate these voluntary disclosures. We investigate the disclosure of non-GAAP financial measures by European firms, using hand-collected data on...

For France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. for the period from 1994 to 2001, this study explores empirically the association between valuation errors from a standard empirical application of the residual income valuation model and violations of the clean surplus relationship (dirty surplus accounting flows). Motivated by concern that the effect of...

It has been suggested thai dirty surplus accouniinti (violation ot the clean surplus relationship (CSR)) may resull in mismeasurenienl of pL-rlbrmance and valtie. and that cross-counlry variation in dirty surplus accounting may cause particular prohit.'nis lor international comparisons. LIsing articulated data ihat are largely handcollocied. we eva...