This paper discusses and explores three situations under asymmetric information. First, companies with a higher level of corporate governance provisions compensate the owner–manager with a higher managerial reward for information disclosed. Second, there are significant and positive...

We examine the effect of auditor litigation risk on firm capital structure decisions by exploiting staggered state-level shocks to third-party auditor legal liability in the United States. We find that an exogenous increase in auditor litigation risk leads to an increase in firm leverage ratios...

A classic problem in public finance is the over-expenditure of local governments in expectation of a bailout from higher-level administrations. While monitoring could mitigate agency problems, it can itself be rendered ineffective if auditors are corruptible. I evaluate whether limiting...

We investigate the effect of auditor litigation risk on firm-level investment. Exploiting the staggered increase in third-party auditor legal liability in US states as an exogenous shock, we find that increased risk of auditor litigation leads to an increase in corporate investments. This effect...

We consider a setting in which insiders have information about income that outside shareholders do not, but property rights ensure that outside shareholders can enforce a fair payout. To avoid intervention, insiders report income consistent with outsiders' expectations based on publicly...

We investigate the intrinsic motivation of individuals to report, and thereby sanction, fellow group members who lie for personal gain. We further explore the changes in lying and reporting behavior that result from giving individuals a say in who joins their group. We find that enough...

We examine how the criteria for choosing estimation samples affect the ability to detect discretionary accruals, using several variants of the Jones (1991) model. Researchers commonly estimate accruals models in cross-section, and define the estimation sample as all firms in the same industry....

In this study, we investigate the effects of firms' internal control weakness (ICW) disclosures on their customers. We hypothesize that ICW disclosure adversely affects customers' perceptions of firms' ability and incentive to honor implicit commitments to customers, and as such, customers are...

We study differences in quality in the market for third-party environmental auditors in Gujarat, India. We find that, despite the low overall quality, auditors are heterogeneous and some perform well. We posit that these high-quality auditors survive by using their good name to insulate select...