We investigate the distribution of pay in the top executive team in public companies. In particular, we study the CEO's pay slice (CPS), defined as the fraction of the aggregate top-five total compensation paid to the CEO. The level of a firm's CPS might reflect the relative centrality of the...

The notion of awareness is introduced to study Regulation Fair Disclosure, a rule implemented by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission in 2000. The regulator aims to reduce information asymmetry among investors, and expects public forums to subsume the forbidden information channel of...

Financial reporting around the time of IPOs is consistent with listed firms reporting more conservatively than previously as private firms, consistent with the results in Ball and Shivakumar (2005). We hypothesize that IPO firms supply the higher quality financial reports demanded by public...

This paper studies mandatory disclosure documents filed during the period 1933-35 in response to the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Our sample companies are all listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and therefore subject to the NYSE's disclosure...

We study the extent to which decisions to expand firm size are associated with increases in subsequent CEO compensation. Investigating a broad universe of firm-expansion choices, we find, controlling for performance and firm characteristics, a positive and economically meaningful correlation...

We examine the properties of firms' forecasting records and whether the accuracy of their prior earnings forecasts affects investor response to their subsequent forecasts. Within the context of a Bayesian model of investor learning, we find that the stock price response to management forecast...

The Business Roundtable has played a key role in the opposition to the SEC shareholder access proposal. While the strong resistance to the proposal has been thus far successful in discouraging the SEC from adopting it, this paper considers the merits of the Business Roundtable's substantive...

This paper is a case study of Fannie Mae's executive compensation arrangements during the period 2000-2004. We identify and analyze four problems with these arrangements:- First, by richly rewarding executives for reporting higher earnings, without requiring return of the compensation if...

This paper examines both empirically and theoretically the growth of U.S. executive pay during the period 1993-2003. During this period, pay has grown much beyond the increase that could be explained by changes in firm size, performance and industry classification. Had the relationship of...

Using a hand collected new data set, this paper examines in detail a classic account of stock market manipulation - the quot;stock poolsquot; of the 1920s, which prompted the current anti-manipulation rules in the United States. We find abnormal trading volume during pools, consistent with...