We investigate whether aggressive tax planning firms have a less transparent information environment. Although tax planning provides expected tax savings, it can simultaneously increase the financial complexity of the organization. And, to the extent that this greater financial complexity cannot...

We examine the press' role in monitoring and influencing executive compensation practice using more than 11,000 press articles about CEO compensation from 1994 to 2002. Negative press coverage is more strongly related to excess annual pay than to raw annual pay, suggesting a sophisticated...

In a recent and influential empirical paper, Francis, LaFond, Olsson, and Schipper (2005) conclude that accruals quality (AQ) is a priced risk factor. We explain that FLOS' regressions examining a contemporaneous relation between excess returns and factor returns do not test the hypothesis that...

We examine whether managers' trading decisions (both at a firm and personal level) are correlated with trading strategies suggested by the operating accruals and the post-earnings announcement drift (SUE) anomalies. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of the use of managerial trading...

Bowen, Ragjopal, and Venkatachalam (2008) explore whether managers, on average, use accounting discretion for reporting objectives that are in the interests of shareholders (e.g., signaling, tax minimization, etc.), or alternatively whether managers use discretion opportunistically in the...

Considerable research has documented the role of debt covenants and conservative financial accounting in addressing agency conflicts between lenders and borrowers. Beatty, Weber and Yu (BWY, 2008) document interesting, but mixed, findings on the relation between debt covenants and conservative...

Stock and option compensation and the level of managerial equity incentives are aspects of corporate governance that are especially controversial to shareholders, institutional activists, and governmental regulators. Similar to much of the corporate finance and corporate governance literature,...

We empirically examine standard agency predictions about how performance measures are optimally weighted to provide CEO incentives. Consistent with prior empirical research, we document that the relative weight on price and non-price performance measures in CEO cash pay is a decreasing function...

Accounting for employee stock options (ESOs) is controversial, with many arguing that it has substantial economic consequences. Such arguments rely on the assumption that one or more interested parties fixate on accounting numbers and fail to understand the real costs and benefits of ESOs. We...

Previous research offers little large-sample evidence on the magnitude of non-financial firms' risk exposure hedged by financial derivatives. Among 234 large non-financial derivatives users, if the median firm simultaneously experiences a three standard deviation change in interest rates,...