This paper examines the role of certain fair value accounting (FVA) outcomes in compensation of US bank CEOs. The use of FVA in compensation invites an agency cost ndash; the clawback problem - if cash compensation is based on unrealized profits that may reverse in the future. At the same time...

This paper examines the interaction between income diversion and firm performance. Using unique Russian banking transaction data, I identify 42,483 spacemen, fly-by-night firms created specifically for income diversion. Next, I build a direct measure of income diversion for 45,429 companies and...

This paper examines the interaction between propensity to corrupt (PTC) and firm performance. First, I use unique data from Moscow traffic violations to build an individual measure of PTC for every Muscovite with a driver's license (3.1 million people). Next, I determine the PTC for the...

Modern autocracies today hold elections but employ a number of tactics to control election outcomes. In response to unfairness of elections, opposition may organize negative campaign to persuade the electorate to vote against a regime candidate. The goal of this paper is to measure the...

Using a direct estimate of income diversion for a large sample of Russian firms from 1999 through 2004, we show that an increase in tax enforcement after Putin's election in 2000 is associated with a decrease in the appropriation of private rents by insiders both in firms explicitly targeted as...

Using a unique database of banking transactions, I examine the relationship between auditing and income diversion in a sample of 25,824 companies. In contrast to other studies, my methodology enables me to accurately measure corporate theft and observe the fees charged by auditors, which are not...

This paper studies the effect of the number of cases of COVID-19 on stock returns from over 3,500 publicly listed firms headquartered across 167 regions in 10 European countries. We instrument the number of cases per million inhabitant in each region with its population, density, and the soccer...

Using a unique set of data that contains 236 million banking transactions of 1.7 million Russian firms over the 2003 to 2004 period, I examine the use of quot;spacemenquot;, short-lived special purpose entities created for cash flow diversion purposes. I first estimate diversion in Russia to be...

We provide evidence of corruption in allocation of public procurement and assess its efficiency. Firms with procurement revenue increase tunneling around regional elections, whereas neither tunneling of firms without procurement revenue, nor legitimate business of firms with procurement exhibits...

We use a unique, comprehensive transactions-level dataset on Russian exports to evaluate the impact of international sanctions—focusing on crude oil and oil products. Relying on data through the first quarter of 2023, we find that the sanctions coalition’s strategy to keep Russian oil on the...