We examine the relation between the relative amount of fees paid to auditors for non-audit services and the behavior of accrual measures. We extend prior research in two important directions. First, using a pooled sample of 2,295 firms for the fiscal year 2000, we find very little evidence of a...

We examine the relation between a broad set of corporate governance indicators and various measures of managerial decision making and organizational performance. Using a sample of 2,106 firms, we distill 39 structural measures of corporate governance (e.g., board characteristics, stock...

We examine the relation between the fees paid to auditors for audit and non-audit services and the choice of accrual measures for a large sample of firms. Using our pooled sample, we find that the ratio of non-audit fees to total fees has a positive relation with the absolute value of accruals...

We examine the link between corporate governance, managerial incentives, and corporate tax avoidance. Similar to other investment opportunities that involve risky expected cash flows, unresolved agency problems may lead managers to engage in more or less corporate tax avoidance than shareholders...

Prior research argues that a manager whose wealth is more sensitive to changes in the firm's stock price has a greater incentive to misreport. However, if the manager is risk-averse and misreporting increases both equity values and equity risk, the sensitivity of the manager's wealth to changes...

This paper examines whether links between inside and outside directors have an impact on CEO compensation. Using a comprehensive sample of 22,074 directors for 3,114 firms, we develop a measure of the quot;back doorquot; distance between each pair of directors on a company's board. Specifically,...

The empirical research examining the association between typical measures of corporate governance and various accounting and economic outcomes has not produced a consistent set of results. We believe that these mixed results are partially attributable to the difficulty in generating reliable and...

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger is well known as the partner of CEO Warren Buffett and also for his advocacy of “multi-disciplinary thinking” — the application of fundamental concepts from across various academic disciplines to solve complex real-world problems. One problem...

Proxy advisory and corporate governance rating firms play an increasingly important role in U.S. public markets. Proxy advisory firms provide voting recommendations to shareholders on proxy proposals and sometimes take an active role persuading management to change governance arrangements....

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,...