Several calls from practitioners and the relevant literature suggest that audit committee directors with industry expertise complement the knowledge of financial experts. Thus, this study examines market reactions to the voluntary appointment of new audit committee directors with financial and...

We examine whether worker representation on corporate boards results in improved monitoring or payroll maximization. Several economic theories predict that worker representatives would use control and voting rights in the boardroom to transform firm assets into private benefits and increased...

This study simultaneously distinguishes between private family firms, private nonfamily firms, public family firms, and public nonfamily firms. We show that private family firms avoid taxes less than public family firms and public nonfamily firms; however, we do not find a difference between...

We investigate a previously overlooked type of non-tax cost associated with tax avoidance: the potential loss of earnings informativeness. Expected benefits from corporate tax planning include positive effects on after-tax earnings and an increase in firm value. However, tax avoidance can entail...

We present a novel research design to detect target-driven earnings management in accounting data. As a particular concern in this line of research, information about the exact earnings target value of a given firm is often not available. We therefore develop an empirical strategy that does not...

We examine whether worker representation on corporate boards results in improved monitoring or payroll maximization. Several economic theories predict that worker representatives would use control and voting rights in the boardroom to transform firm assets into private benefits and increased...

This paper examines the association between managers' cash bonuses and discretionary accounting choices in a sample of German stock corporations from 2005 to 2007. We investigate managers' earnings management behavior with respect to their bonus compensation and the independence of outside...