We study the 2017 UK rule requiring firms that employ more than 250 workers to publicly disclose gender pay gap data. We focus on two questions of interest to regulators and socially conscious investors: (i) does gender pay equity improve after mandatory disclosure? and (ii) is gender pay equity...

Regulators have alleged that digital giants (Alphabet, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon) have misused their market power to earn abnormal profits. Research that systematically documents whether technology firms earn abnormal profits is limited, arguably because (i) U.S. GAAP based...

We provide evidence on the long standing concern on auditor conflicts of interest from providing non-audit services (NAS) to audit clients by using rarely explored NAS fee data from 1978-80. Using this earlier setting, we find cross-sectional evidence of improved earnings quality when auditors...

MSCI, widely considered the largest data provider to the ESG investment community, sells ESG ratings for companies and constructs its own ESG indexes based on such ratings. Such ESG indexes underlie the creation of several ESG ETFs (exchange traded funds) or mutual funds. Motivated by such...

Investment funds that claim to focus on socially responsible stocks have proliferated in recent times. In this paper, we verify whether ESG mutual funds actually invest in firms that have stakeholder-friendly track records. Using a comprehensive sample of self-labelled ESG mutual funds in the US...

We provide evidence on the long standing concern on auditor conflicts of interest from providing non-audit services (NAS) to audit clients by using rarely explored NAS fee data from 1978-80 Using this earlier setting, we find cross-sectional evidence of improved earnings quality when auditors...

We examine (i) whether the business practices of Berkshire Hathaway investees are consistent with Warren Buffett's public statements on what constitutes good accounting, governance and investing practices and (ii) whether these practices are associated with Berkshire's initial “selection” or...

This study examines whether the board of directors penalizes CEOs and CFOs in the form of bonus cuts, fewer equity grants, and forced turnover for the act of barely missing the latest consensus analyst forecast and whether such penalties are consistent with efficient contracting or fixation. We...

We examine the association between CEO reputation (proxied by the extent of press coverage) and the quality of the firm's earnings (proxied by two accruals-based measures). We test three explanations for an association between these constructs: the efficient contracting hypothesis suggests that...

We investigate whether accounting discretion is (i) abused by opportunistic managers who exploit lax governance structures, or (ii) used by managers in a manner consistent with efficient contracting and shareholder value-maximization. Prior research documents an association between accounting...