Heflin, Moon, and Wallace (2016; hereafter, HMW) are an excellent addition to the inaugural issue of the Journal of Financial Reporting (JFR) for at least two reasons. First, as I explain below, I believe the article provides important evidence about whether and how disclosure quality and earnings quality convey capital market benefits in the form of reduced capital costs and increased market liquidity. Second, I consider the paper to be an exemplar of one of the manuscript types explicitly encouraged in JFR's editorial policy, which reads: “Replications include a partial or comprehensive repeat of an experiment that sustains as many conditions as possible but uses a different sample. The sample employed in the replication should be at least as ‘strong’ as the original sample. JFR also uses the term ‘Replication’ to describe an archival empirical analysis that primarily performs the same analysis as an existing study,...
