In Eqs. (3) and (4), we also include the beginning-of-quarter capital ratio and earnings before provision to control for banks’ incentives to manipulate provision to avoid falling below regulatory requirements or to smooth earnings (Ahmed et al., 1999; Liu and Ryan, 2006; Healy and Wahlen, 1999). Bank-quarters that have one-quarter-lagged difference in R2 higher than the median during the quarter are classified as having a smaller delay in expected loss recognition (i.e., the oDelay variable equals 1), otherwise they are classified as having a greater delay (i.e., oDelay equals 0).While this approach is intuitive in capturing the extent of delays in expected loss recognition, it requires time-series data constraining the sample size. Therefore, in addition to this flow measure, we develop a second stock measure that circumvents this shortcoming. In the same spirit of the first approach, we define a smaller delay in expected loss recognition as the ratio of the allowance of loan loss provisions (COMPUSTAT ‘‘rclq’’) divided by nonperforming loans