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This study investigates whether investors see through materially misstated earnings, and whether they anticipate earnings restatements. For firms that restate at least one annual report, we find that investors are misled by mistakes in reported earnings at the time of initial earnings announcements. Investors react positively to the component of the favorable earnings surprise that will subsequently be restated, and they attach the same valuation to it as to the true earnings surprise. We also find that investors anticipate the subsequent downward restatements and start marking stock prices down several months before a restatement announcement, so that the full impact of a restatement is about three times as large as the restatement announcement effect. Indeed, we show that investors punish restating firms because the stock price gains that shareholders enjoy when firms initially announce overstated earnings are more than reversed by the time of the restatement announcement.

a b s t r a c t JEL classification: G14 G12 M41 Keywords: Liquidity Financial statement restatements Misreporting Earnings management Information asymmetry Quality of financial information DisclosureThis paper examines the relationship between liquidity and quality of financial information by analyzing long-term trends in Amihud's (2002) illiquidity measure for firms that restate financial statements. I find that for most income decreasing restatements illiquidity increases several months before restatement announcement and remains at elevated levels one year after restatement. The result is most pronounced for firms listed on NASDAQ. Increase in illiquidity is greater upon restatements due to revenue recognition, those prompted by party other than auditor, those made by larger firms with high volatility of returns and low price levels. Income increasing restatements do not affect information asymmetry of the firm. Overall, my results indicate a positive relationship between quality of financial information and liquidity. . 1 The terms "disclosure", "transparency" and "quality of information" are used interchangeably.2 These papers use CFA Institute (formerly Association for Investment and Management Research (AIMR)) score to measure quality of firm's disclosure. The score is composed by financial analysts and evaluates firm disclosure based on annual published information, quarterly and other published information, and communications with analysts.1058-3300/$see front matter

A large negative stock price reaction to a restatement announcement could imply a significant accounting error, or one made by a firm with a high probability of being sued. We investigate the extent to which market reactions to restatement announcements are explained by litigation risk. We model the simultaneous relation between restatement announcement abnormal returns and litigation risk and find that about half of the −9.2% average restatement announcement effect is due to expected litigation costs. We also find that the significance of the accounting error only affects abnormal return indirectly because it increases the probability of being sued.

This paper presents and validates a novel empirical approach for measuring the value of option to redevelop using a standard hedonic dataset. Our analysis generalizes the standard hedonic model to account for the option value of reconfiguring hedonic characteristics. We test this model with over 162,000 real estate transactions in 53 towns in Connecticut between 1994 and 2007 by adding a non-linear intensity variable, which increases with the aggregate value of structure and decreases with land value. A conservative estimate is that about 20% of towns have positive option to redevelop, with a mean value of 29-34% for properties most like vacant land. Multiple tests across towns support predictions of real options theory. Positive option value towns have higher house price volatility and estimated option value varies positively with price volatility, a finding inconsistent with NPV theory. We also find positive association between option value and drift in house prices and a U-shape relation with house price adjusted for structural characteristics. Higher property taxes reduce the value of option to redevelop.