Stock Price Behavior Associated with Post-1974–75 LIFO Adoptions Announced at Alternative Disclosure Times

Abstract

We examine the behavior of stock prices at the time of post-1974–75 LIFO adoption announcements. We exploit recent theoretical and empirical developments in the LIFO adoption literature in an attempt to resolve some of the mixed findings in Hand (1993). We study LIFO adoptions announced prior to as well as at the time of annual earnings announcements. Previous research has mostly centered on 1974–75 adoptions made at the time of annual earnings announcements. Our study of LIFO adoptions announced prior to annual earnings announcement dates enables us to provide evidence on whether the early announcement of a LIFO adoption is used by firms to signal positive information about earnings growth. Collectively, our results suggest that in explaining the market response to LIFO adoption announcements, extant models of the LIFO adoption decision do not fully capture the richness of differing inflationary environments or of alternative disclosure times.