This paper examines how one firm’s commitment to provide more public disclosure affects other firms’ disclosure practices in subsequent periods. I develop an investor demand-driven explanation for why and when firms adopt the disclosure innovation of a first-mover firm. I test the hypothesis...

Although U.S. restaurant firms face high risks in diversifying their operations internationally, there are no previous studies that motivate international diversification. If international diversification is risky then why do restaurant firms go abroad? This study focuses on one potential...

This study is an empirical examination of a new theory that links dividends to institutional ownership in a framework of both information signaling and agency costs. Under this theory put forth by Allen, Bernardo and Welch in 2000, dividends are paid out to attract tax-favored institutional...

In the first essay, I examine the association between auditor industry specialization and earnings management choices. Prior research suggests that industry specialist auditors constrain accounting-based earnings management. But such actions may cause client companies to seek alternative means...

The first chapter analyzes both the disposition effect and trading performance at the individual level to determine whether and how investors learn from their trading experience. The study finds that performance improves and the disposition effect declines as investors become more experienced,...

This thesis presents two essays in Corporate Finance. In the first essay, I use the August 2007 crisis episode to gauge the effect of financial contracting on real firm behavior. I identify heterogeneity in financial contracting at the onset of the crisis by exploiting ex-ante variation in...

In this thesis, I investigate diverse aspects of capital market efficiency in selected emerging markets. In chapter 2, the focus of analysis is on the role of trading volume and capitalisation in the process of information absorption by the stock prices. Empirical analysis is conducted for...

Incluye bibliografía ; In this paper, we investigate the investment behaviour of institutional investors in terms of their shareholdings in 2,938 companies listed on the Tokyo and Osaka Stock Exchanges at the end of June 2002. By doing so, we provide one of the first detailed empirical analyses...

Analizamos el impacto de las operaciones que se realizan en mercados financieros a gran velocidad utilizando un modelo con tres tipos de operadores: consumidores de liquidez, creadores de mercado y operadores de alta frecuencia. Nuestros cuatro resultados principales son: i) el impacto de las...

This dissertation consists of three essays on the role of social values in financial markets. Chapter 1 uses geographic variation in religious concentration to identify the effect of people's gambling behavior in financial market settings. We argue that religious background predicts people's...