Measures of the Timeliness of Earnings

Brown, Philip R.; Dobbie, Glen; Jackson, Andrew B.

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Measures of the Timeliness of Earnings

Australian Accounting Review, Forthcoming

28 Pages Posted: 19 Oct 2009 Last revised: 2 Jul 2011

See all articles by Philip R. Brown

Philip R. Brown

UWA Business School, M250; Financial Research Network (FIRN)

Andrew B. Jackson

UNSW Australia Business School, School of Accounting

Date Written: June 30, 2011

Abstract

We explore relationships among four measures of ‘timeliness’ in the financial accounting research literature: the Ball and Brown (1968) measure; Dyer and McHugh’s (1975) reporting lag; the Khan and Watts (2009) measure; and the Beekes and Brown (2006) measure. There are good reasons why the measures might be related and also why they might differ. Thus we examine the extent to which they are empirically related, using data for a sample of Australian companies over the period 1994-2005. Overall, we find the four measures share a common label, ‘timeliness’, but not much else.

Keywords: Timeliness, Price Discovery, Conservatism

JEL Classification: M40

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Brown, Philip R. and Dobbie, Glen and Jackson, Andrew B., Measures of the Timeliness of Earnings (June 30, 2011). Australian Accounting Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1490162