Our sample begins with Compustat firms with available
data from 1976 to 2005. We first eliminate non-December
year-ends and observations that lack lagged data. We eliminate
non-December year-ends to simplify identification of
when specific standards are applicable to firms. Our preliminary
sample consists of 138,692 firm-year observations.
We then eliminate observations missing required Compustat
data. Our final sample size is 91,931 observations.