According to agency theory, impression management is lower in family-owned firms because of reduced agency I conflicts. However, when family owners are present, agency I conflicts are superseded by agency II conflicts between controlling and minority shareholders, leading to a positive...

We examine the strategic choice of peer comparables in fairness opinions (FOs) used in M&A valuations. Using a hand-collected sample of peer comparable analyses and a regulatory shock to appraisal lawsuit risk, we show that target-sought FOs employ lower-valued peers when litigation risk is...

While there is evidence that shareholders’ tax preferences influence corporate decisions, less is known about the channels that are used to impose such preferences. In our paper, we focus on whether and how tax-sensitive institutional investors (TSII) leverage on executive compensation design...

This paper studies earnings management and forecast guidance activities of European banks between 2004 and 2008. Using 22,564 analyst forecasts for 55 banks we find that the proportion of banks hitting or beating analyst consensus fell from 68.22% pre-crisis to 28.13% during the crisis. Banks...

Risk disclosures are among the most important types of non-financial information valued by investors. Risk disclosures are mostly narrative, proprietary in nature and, consequently, the importance of their accuracy and assurance is high to prevent them becoming boiler-plate and lose their...