This paper investigates the extent to which voluntary disclosure quality (VDQ) of firms is reflected in equity prices. As a novel contribution, we explore the idea that the speed with which equity prices reflect any benefits or costs of VDQ varies across firms. We find that in environments where...

We find that investors are fixated on analysts' consensus outputs (earnings forecasts, recommendations, and forecast dispersion), which can be inferior signals compared to the corresponding outputs provided by high-quality analysts, especially when a large number of high-quality analysts follow...

This paper examines short sales transaction volumes on the first trading day of 610 initial public offerings (IPOs) from 2011 to 2015. The tests provide evidence of informed trading immediately at the IPO. Results reveal that short selling volume on the first trading day of the IPO is...

Does earnings management, even though legal, hinder investor trust in reported earnings? Or do investors regard earnings management as a way for firms to convey private information, or simply as a neutral feature of financial reporting? We find that past abstinence from earnings management...

We examine the relation between the shareholder base and payout policy. Consistent with the idea that the shareholder base is related to the cost of external financing we find that fi rms with small shareholder bases have lower payout levels and maintain higher cash holdings. We show that...

This paper (i) proposes a simple multi-currency model of speculative foreign exchange (FX) trading, (ii) uses a natural experiment to identify the implied components of the optimal trading strategy, and (iii) proposes a new spectral inference method to strengthen the statistical evidence on the...

This paper empirically analyses the effect of foreign block acquisitions on the U.S. target firms' credit risk as captured by their CDS. The involvement of foreign investors leads to a significant increase in the target firms' CDS spreads. This effect is stronger when foreign owners are...

We examine the effects of mandatory ESG disclosure around the world using a novel dataset. Mandatory ESG disclosure increases the availability and quality of ESG reporting, especially among firms with low ESG performance. Mandatory ESG reporting has in turn beneficial effects on firm’s...

The interplay between investors' demand and providers' incentives has shaped the evolution of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). While early ETFs offered diversification at low cost, later ETFs track niche portfolios and charge high fees. Strikingly, over their first five years, specialized ETFs lose...

We study a unique experiment to examine the importance of rating agencies' private information for bank shareholders. On July 20, 2011, Fitch Ratings refined their bank standalone ratings, which measure intrinsic financial strength, from a 9-point to a 21-point scale. This refinement did not...