Interpreting accruals as working capital investment, we hypothesize that firms rationally adjust their investment to respond to discount rate changes. Consistent with the optimal investment hypothesis, we document that (i) the predictive power of accruals for future stock returns increases with...

We construct accounting-based costs of equity for dollar neutral long-short trading strategies formed on a comprehensive list of anomaly variables. These variables include book-to-market, size, composite issuance, net stock issues, abnormal investment, asset growth, investment-to-assets,...

We examine information spillover as a source of stock return synchronicity, where information about highly-followed "prominent" stocks is used to price other "neglected" stocks sharing a common fundamental component. We find that stocks followed by few analysts co-move significantly with...

We consider the strategic timing of information releases in a dynamic disclosure model. Because investors don't know whether or when the firm is informed, the firm will not necessarily disclose immediately. We show that bad market news can trigger the immediate release of information by firms....

This paper examines capital market effects of changes in securities regulation. We analyze two key directives in the European Union (EU) that tightened market abuse and transparency regulation and its enforcement. All EU member states were required to adopt these two directives, but did so at...

We analyze a comprehensive sample of more than 10,000 U.S. stocks in the OTC market. As little is known about this market, we first characterize OTC firms by trading venue and provide evidence on survival, success, frequency of venue changes, reporting status, and trading activity. A large...

Competition for positive attention in financial markets frequently resembles a tournament, where superior relative performance and greater visibility are rewarded with convex payoffs. We present a rational expectations model in which firms compete for such positive attention and show that higher...

The consequences of information differences across investors in capital markets are still much debated. This paper examines the relation between information differences across investors and the cost of capital, and makes three points. First, in models of perfect competition, information...

This paper examines the link between disclosure and the cost of capital. We exploit an exogenous cost of capital shock created by the Enron scandal in Fall 2001 and analyze firms' disclosure responses to this shock. These tests are opposite to the typical research design that analyzes cost of...

A firm's deferred tax position can influence how it is affected by a transition from one tax regime to another. We compile disaggregated deferred tax position data for a sample of large U.S. firms between 1993 and 2004 to explore how these positions might affect firm behavior before and after a...