We find that firms with greater tax avoidance incur higher spreads when obtaining bank loans. This finding is robust in a battery of sensitivity analyses and in two quasi-experimental settings including the implementation of Financial Accounting Standards Board Interpretation No. 48 and the...

We find that firms headquartered in U.S. counties with higher levels of social capital incur lower bank loan spreads. This finding is robust to using organ donation as an alternative social-capital measure and incremental to the effects of religiosity, corporate social responsibility, and tax...

We investigate whether the levels of social capital in US counties, as captured by strength of civic norms and density of social networks in the counties, are systematically related to tax avoidance activities of corporations with headquarters located in the counties. We find strong negative...

For the past two decades, China has experienced strong, continuous economic growth. At the same time, the number of motor vehicles in China has rapidly increased. As a direct result of such a phenomenon, China has been registering significant increases in air pollution. In spite of recent...

This study examines whether corporate culture promotion affects firm performance in China in terms of firm market value, firm financial performance and innovation output. We find consistent evidence that corporate culture promotion is negatively related to firm market value, positively related...

Motivated by recent studies that show female CFOs are more risk averse than male CFOs when making various corporate decisions, we examine whether banks take into consideration the gender of CFOs when pricing bank loans. We find that in our sample, firms under the control of female CFOs on...

This study uses the current financial crisis as a quasi-experiment to examine whether and to what extent corporate boards affect the performance of firms. Using cumulative stock returns over the crisis to measure of firm performance, we find that board independence, as traditionally defined,...

We investigate the role of corporate boards in bank loan contracting. We find that when corporate boards are more independent, both price and nonprice loan terms (e.g., interest rates, collateral, covenants, and performance-pricing provisions) are more favorable, and syndicated loans comprise...

Using the recent financial crisis as a natural quasi-experiment, we test whether and to what extent conservative accounting affects shareholder value. We find that there is significantly positive and economically meaningful relation between conservatism and firm stock performance during the...