This study considers accounting in the new information economy. The basic framework of accounting for firms reflects a set of contracts and it helps define, implement and enforce these contracts. This framework is stable, and unlikely to change soon. However, the new information technology has...

We examine whether ownership and governance characteristics are associated with the firm s operating performance and stock price. We hypothesize that while ownership structure and governance mechanisms impact the firm's operating performance, they can also impact stakeholders abilities to...

This paper describes and analyzes a relatively new method of equity-based restructuring, Targeted Stock. We examine announcement period share price reactions for completed, pending, and canceled offerings. Although the total number of completed transactions to date is small, we document a...

Our working hypothesis is that a professional board which is independent of management should tip the scales in favor of higher returns to investors. Although this hypothesis is amply supported by observation and reasonable assumptions, no detailed analysis of corporate relative performance has...

We consider legal rules that determine the price at which minority shareholders can be excluded from the corporate enterprise after a change in control. These rules affect investment after such a change as well as the probability of the change itself. Our principal results are that minority...

Northeast Utilities System, an electricity generating and distribution company in Southern New England, adopted the low-cost dominant strategy fashionable in the management consulting companies in the mid-1980s and carried through with that strategy in the face of extreme employee, regulatory,...

We have seen a revival in interest in corporate law and corporate governance since the 1980s, as researchers applied the tools of the new institutional economics and modern corporate finance to analyze the new transactions emerging in the 1980s takeover wave. This article focuses on three...

Governments and vocal institutional shareholders have been exerting pressure on companies they deem to have objectionable operations (such as tobacco or chemical producers). This paper studies the effect of the most important legislative and shareholder boycott to date, the boycott of the South...

We analyze characteristics of firms that reprice their executive stock options (ESOs). We document that repricings are economically significant compensation events but there is little else unusual about compensation levels or changes in repricers. Cross-sectionally, repricers are rapidly growing...

Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits enforcement of the once common "ipso facto" clause." The clause excuses the solvent party from performance of the contract when the other party becomes insolvent. We show that the ability of insolvent firms to continue bad projects is enhanced by the...