Using an experimental design that exploits exogenous reductions in coverage resulting from brokerage house mergers, we find that a reduction in coverage causes a deterioration in financial reporting quality. The effect of coverage on disclosure is more pronounced for firms with weak shareholder...

This paper investigates whether the U.S. repatriation tax for U.S. multinational corporations affects foreign investment. Our results show that the locked-out cash due to repatriation tax costs is associated with a higher likelihood of foreign (but not domestic) acquisitions. We also find a...

There exists large and persistent variation in not only how, but when employees are paid, a fact unexplained by existing theory. This paper develops a simple model of optimal pay timing for firms. When workers have self-control problems, they under-save and experience volatile consumption...

We examine which independent directors are held accountable when investors sue firms for financial and disclosure-related fraud. Investors can name independent directors as defendants in lawsuits, and they can vote against their reelection to express displeasure over the directors’...

We provide empirical evidence on the positive effect of non-executive employee stock options on corporate innovation. The positive effect is more pronounced when employees are more important for innovation, when free-riding among employees is weaker, when options are granted broadly to most...

Using transactions generally overlooked in the compensation literature—joint ventures, strategic alliances, seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), and spin-offs—we find that, beyond compensation for increases in firm size or complexity, chief executive officers (CEOs) are rewarded for their...

Does corporate governance affect the timing of large investment projects? Hazard model estimates suggest strong shareholder governance may deter managers from pursuing large investments. Controlling for investment opportunities, firms with good governance experience longer spells between large...

We study changes in chief executive officer (CEO) contracts when firms transition from public ownership with dispersed owners to private ownership with strong principals in the form of private equity sponsors. The most significant changes are that a significant portion of equity grants...

We show that pay is higher for chief executive officers (CEOs) with general managerial skills gathered during lifetime work experience. We use CEOs' résumés of Standard and Poor's 1,500 firms from 1993 through 2007 to construct an index of general skills that are transferable across firms and...

We analyze the factors that drive exercise price policy for executive option plans (ESOPs) and their scope in a country where firms are not subject to the tax and accounting considerations that seem to have led to the dominance of at-the-money options in the US Our “unbounded” data for...