In about 20%-30% of cases where an analyst revises two outputs (namely, earnings estimates, target prices, or stock recommendations) simultaneously, the two estimates are revised in opposite directions. Existing literature notes that these inconsistent outputs are widespread, and concludes that...

This paper examines the effects of accounting-based thresholds in regulation on growth decisionsin the banking industry. To investigate this relation we study changes in growth around the $10billion asset threshold specified in the Dodd-Frank Act. We first document that in the yearsafter the new...

This paper studies financial statement consistency--the purported means to comparability--from an information perspective. We model consistency as firms' required propensity to apply common accounting methods to individual transactions, and show that it creates information spillover through...

This study examines whether the percentage of retail ownership of a firm is associated with the likelihood that the firm is subject to monitoring and enforcement by the two largest divisions of the SEC. We find a negative association between retail ownership percentage and SEC monitoring. In...

This paper investigates the effects of the requirement under the Dodd-Frank Act that all large bank holding companies create a stand-alone, board-level risk committee. In addressing this issue I focus on banks that had not voluntarily created such a committee prior to the legislation, as these...

In their implementation of Basel III, U.S. bank regulators are again including changes in the fair value of available-for-sale (AFS) debt securities in Tier 1 capital, but only for the largest U.S. banks. This paper investigates a potential impact of expanding this regulation by examining bank...

We examine whether bank connections via common mutual fund ownership serve as a contagion channel affecting the systemic risk of the banking system. We first document that the extent of a bank’s connection with other banks via common ownership increases its contribution to systemic risk. We...

To encourage banks to accommodate distressed borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic, regulators redacted loan modification activity from each bank’s public regulatory filings so that banks could modify loans free from capital market scrutiny. Congress also superseded U.S. GAAP by allowing...

We examine the relation between disclosure tone and shareholder litigation to determine whether managers’ use of optimistic language increases litigation risk. Using both general-purpose and context-specific text dictionaries to quantify tone, we find that plaintiffs target more optimistic...

We study the effect of disclosure on uncertainty by examining how management earnings forecasts affect stock market volatility. Using implied volatilities from exchange-traded options prices, we find that management earnings forecasts, on average, increase short-term volatility. This effect is...