We provide evidence that when more than half of a firm's voting shareholders disapprove of the executive pay plan, the spillover effects are significantly positive for peers of non-financial firms and significantly negative for peers of financial firms. The valuation effects are positively...

Deposit insurance is a put option that encourages excessive risk taking by banks. Excess litigation against a bank, a form of operational risk, is one indicator of risk because litigation often reflects a failure to maintain a strong system of internal control. We analyze five different measures...

We analyze the changes in capital market risk measures following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 for publicly-traded insurers. The most substantive impact occurs for life insurers, who experience significant increases in all risk measures, although we also document...

Excessive (substantially above peer) litigation against a bank is indicative of operational risk because it often suggests failure to maintain a strong system of internal control. We examine the relation between bank performance and weak internal control using legal expense as a proxy. We find...

Directors help determine the strategic direction of a corporation and are responsible for ensuring the institution has a good system of internal control. Banking institutions without a strategic direction emphasizing sound lending practices that promote the long-run financial health and...

This study extends the research on closed-end fund performance persistence by investigating whether the persistence of both net asset value (NAV) and market price returns of U.S. registered closed-end funds is related to various fund characteristics. The sample consists of 505 closed-end funds,...

Entrepreneurship is not only used to create a business idea, but also to restructure a business in response to environmental conditions. Firms that issue equity after emerging from bankruptcy are unique in that they exhibit less asymmetric information than other firms that issue equity. They...

We examine an effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) on voluntary public managerial guidance information quality. Results suggest that the information quality of public guidance has not deteriorated after RegFD. We also examine separately the effect of Reg FD on information efficiency...

We assess the bond market response to the Bear Stearns rescue in March 2008 and the Lehman Brothers failure (combined with news about the acquisition of Merrill Lynch and AIG's investment banking problems and subsequent rescue) in September 2008. The Bear Stearns rescue elicited a moderately...

The increased government efforts to pursue insider trading charges against Galleon Group and the subsequent increase in penalties for violating insider trading laws can deter managers from leaking information and deter investors from capitalizing on leaked information before earnings guidance...