We study corporate performance during and after the Great Depression for all industrial firms on the NYSE. Our first goal is to identify the factors that contribute to business insolvency and valuation during the period 1928 to 1938. To this end, we examine factors such as debt policy,...

We provide insights into earnings quality from a survey of 169 CFOs of public companies and in-depth interviews of 12 CFOs and two standard setters. CFOs believe that (i) above all, high-quality earnings are sustainable and repeatable; specific characteristics include consistent reporting...

We analyze survey responses from nearly 600 corporate tax executives to investigate firms' incentives and disincentives for tax planning. While many researchers hypothesize that reputational concerns affect the degree to which managers engage in tax planning, this hypothesis is difficult to test...

We recently conducted a comprehensive survey that analyzes how senior financial executives make decisions related to performance measurement and voluntary disclosure. In particular, we ask CFOs what earnings benchmarks they care about and which factors motivate executives to exercise discretion,...

Why do firms manage risk? According to theory, firms hedge to mitigate credit rationing, to alleviate information asymmetry, and to reduce the risk of financial distress. Empirical support for these theories is mixed. Our paper addresses the “why” by directly questioning the managers that...

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...

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 10% the year her firm files for bankruptcy and fall by a present value of 67% over seven years. This effect is more pronounced in thin labor markets and among small firms that are ultimately liquidated. Compensating wage differentials for this “bankruptcy...

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...