Publications – Stephen V. Brown, Ph. D.

Financial Statement Adequacy and Firms’ MD&A Disclosures

Brown, S. V., Hinson, L. A., and J. W. Tucker. 2024. Financial Statement Adequacy and Firms’ MD&A Disclosures. Contemporary Accounting Research. 41 (1): 126-162.

Using a variety of NLP techniques, we look at how companies use the narrative MD&A in the 10-K to compensate when their financial statements have relatively lower information contained in the quantitative numbers.

Textual Analysis in Accounting: What’s Next?

Bochkay, K., Brown, S. V., Leone, A. J. and J. W. Tucker. 2023. Textual Analysis in Accounting: What’s Next?. Contemporary Accounting Research. 40 (2): 765-805.

We discuss new developments in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and how they can be applied to perform textual analysis in accounting research.

Financial Statement Similarity

Brown, S. V., Ma, G., and J. W. Tucker (2023). Financial Statement Similarity. Contemporary Accounting Research. 40 (4): 2577–2615.

We develop a novel measure of financial statement similarity using vector-based cosine similarity.

The Spillover Effect of SEC Comment Letters on Qualitative Corporate Disclosure: Evidence from the Risk Factor Disclosure

Brown, S. V., X. Tian, and J. W. Tucker. 2018. The Spillover Effect of SEC Comment Letters on Qualitative Corporate Disclosure: Evidence from the Risk Factor Disclosure. Contemporary Accounting Research. 35 (2): 622-656.

This paper examines how SEC comment letters to one company can lead to other companies modifying their own disclosures.

Auditor-Client Compatibility and Audit Firm Selection

Brown, S. V. and W. R. Knechel. 2016. Auditor-Client Compatibility and Audit Firm Selection. Journal of Accounting Research. 54 (3): 725-775.

Using cosine similarity to compare clients of an auditor, we examine how well each client fits into the portfolio and what happens when they have low compatibility.

Large-Sample Evidence on Firms’ Year-over-Year MD&A Modifications

Brown, S. V. and J. Tucker. 2011. Large-Sample Evidence on Firms’ Year-Over-Year MD&A Modifications. Journal of Accounting Research. 49 (2): 309-346.

We introduce a cosine-based measure to the accounting literature that proxies for year-over-year changes in companies’ 10-K MD&A disclosures.