This study tests catering theory of dividend policies in twenty-one countries from 1991 to 2017. First, we show that there are important differences in corporate dividend policies across countries. Second, we find that the catering incentive is stronger when investor sentiment is low. Third,...

This paper investigates the layoff behavior, a typical people dimension of corporate social performance (CSP), of family firms from a place-based perspective. We theorize that a place-based culture within family firms ensures that all organizational members share a deep sense of connection with...

This paper finds strong support for the argument that heterogeneous adjustment costs significantly affects the speed with which a firm approaches its target capital structure. We find that firms with higher non-debt tax shields (from R&D), and cash holdings adjust faster to their target capital...

We document that product market threats increase the use of leased capital. We use Chinese import penetration in an instrumental variables setting to address endogeneity concerns. The positive relation between product market threats and leases is larger for firms that are financially...

In this paper, we investigate whether product market threats have a significant impact on firms' tax avoidance. By adopting the market fluidity measure introduced in Hoberg, Phillips, and Prahbala (2014) as a proxy for product market threats, we find that product market threats increase the...

This paper studies how accounting treatment of off-balance sheet financing affects the speed of capital structure adjustment. Utilizing a quasi-natural experiment created by Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-02 which requires operating lease to be capitalized on the balance sheet, we...

In this paper, we find that product market threats increase firms’ tax avoidance. This association is especially observed for firms that pursue tax avoidance more than their optimal target level (i.e., actively tax-avoiding firms). In addition, among these firms with active tax avoidance...

In this paper, we propose several factors which can explain the negative relationship between financial constraints and investment-cash flow sensitivity. First, we find that substitutability between reserved cash holdings and internal free cash flow can partially explain why financially...