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res on stock prices, with most of them ?nding negative market reactions to the reporting of material weaknesses (., Whisenant et al., 2020。 De Franco et al., 2020。 Cheng et al., 2020。 AshbaughSkaife et al., forthing。 Hammersley et al.,forthing). The current study investigates bank loan o?cers’ reaction to internal control reports. We study bank loan o?cers because this group of users routinely analyzes ?nancial data and has an inherent interest in the reliability of such data. Moreover, the e?ect of credit decisions in the marketplace is far reaching. Because bank loan o?cers are knowledgeable users of ?nancial statements, the ?ndings of this study may generalize to other sophisticated user groups. We conduct an experimental study to investigate whether the disclosure of internal control weaknesses has a negative e?ect on bank loan o?cers’ assessments of risk and, in turn,the likelihood of granting a loan. The use of an experimental approach allows us to pletely control the information that is available to participants. We are able to control for factors that can create challenges for archival researchers, including concurrent information disclosure, ?rmspeci?c characteristics, and self selection. Previous studies (., Doyleet al., 2020a。 AshbaughSkaife et al., 2020a) ?nd that most disclosures of material weaknesses are announced by weaker panies and are acpanied by restatements, restructuring, and other bad news. While these studies attempt to control for such problems with selfselection control procedures, the controls are likely insu?cient. Hence, an