I argue that external financial reporting quality has at best a 2nd order effect on firm value of U.S. publicly traded companies and that attempts to improve a firm's external reporting quality has a 3rd order effect on these firms' value. Recognizing that external financial reporting quality is...

We predict that access to cross-border financing by the industrial sector reduces firms' reliance on domestic banks, thereby leading to lower rents for banks and greater competition in the domestic banking sector. We also predict that banks take on more risk to offset these lost rents and remain...

The lobbying literature provides evidence of firms shaping their regulatory context, consistent with corporate rent-seeking. We propose that such rent-seeking, where it exists, is unlikely to enrich shareholders at the expense of customers when firms operate in competitive product markets. We...

This paper argues that academics, politicians, and the media have six commonly held but misguided beliefs about corporate governance. While Armstrong, Guay, and Weber (2010) discuss some of these misconceptions, a wider recognition that these beliefs are actually “myths” is important. They...

Prior studies identify several motives for why firms release management earnings forecasts (MFs). A common feature of such studies is they pool MFs when drawing inferences about a specific motive. By ignoring the heterogeneous rationales managers have to issue MFs, pooling could lead to biased...

Prior research generally argues that managers issue management earnings forecasts (MFs) to secure capital market benefits (i.e., reduce information asymmetry between managers and investors to lower a firm's cost of capital), to reduce the firm's litigation costs, or to allow managers to trade...