We survey CFOs throughout the COVID-19 crisis to learn how multiple dimensions of corporate flexibility affect their short- and long-term business plans. We find that i) workplace flexibility, namely the ability for employees to work remotely, plays a central role in modulating firms’...

We explore a long standing prediction in the international business literature that managers' subjective perceptions of political risk – not just the level of risk – are important for how firms manage political risk. The importance attributed to political risk by corporate executives has...

We survey 384 CFOs and Treasurers, and conduct in-depth interviews with an additional two dozen, to determine the key factors that drive dividend and share repurchase policies. We find that managers are very reluctant to cut dividends, that dividends are smoothed through time, and that dividend...

We document that simulated corporate marginal tax rates based on financial statement data (Shevlin 1990 and Graham 1996a) are highly correlated with simulated rates based on corporate tax return data. We provide algorithms that can be used to estimate the book or tax simulated rates when they...

We survey more than 1,000 CEOs and CFOs to understand how capital is allocated, and decision-making authority is delegated, within firms. We find that CEOs are least likely to share or delegate decision-making authority in mergers and acquisitions, relative to delegation of capital structure,...

We study a period of severe disequilibrium to investigate whether board characteristics are related to corporate investment, debt usage, and firm value. During the 1930-1938 Depression era, when the corporate sector was shocked by an unprecedented downturn, we document a relation between board...

We administer psychometric tests to senior executives to obtain evidence on their underlying psychological traits and attitudes. We find US CEOs differ significantly from non-US CEOs in terms of their underlying attitudes. In addition, we find that CEOs are significantly more optimistic and...

This article reviews empirical capital structure research, concentrating on papers published since 2005. We begin by documenting three dimensions of capital structure variation: cross firm, cross industry, and within firm through time. We summarize how well the traditional trade-off and pecking...

This paper quantifies the “human costs of bankruptcy” by estimating employee wage losses induced by the bankruptcy filing of employers using employee-employer matched data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s LEHD program. We find that employee wages begin to deteriorate one year prior to...

An employee's annual earnings fall by 13% the year her firm files for bankruptcy, and the present value of lost earnings from bankruptcy to six years following bankruptcy is 87% of pre-bankruptcy annual earnings. More worker earnings are lost in thin labor markets and among small firms. Ex ante...