In this study we analyze the effect of latent managerial characteristics on corporate governance. We find that CEO and board chair fixed effects explain a significant portion of the variation in board size, board independence, and CEO-chair duality even after controlling for several firm...

<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">Abstract</heading>We examine how governance characteristics are related to the corporate choice between public and private debt. We find that firms with fewer takeover defenses and larger outside blockholder ownership are more likely to borrow from banks and to issue 144A debt. We also document that...

We find that returns to momentum investing are higher among high idiosyncratic volatility <b>(</b>IVol) stocks, especially high IVol losers. Higher IVol stocks also experience quicker and larger reversals. The findings are consistent with momentum profits being attributable to underreaction to...

We provide new evidence that differences in international tax rates and tax regimes affect multinational firms' debt location decisions. Our sample contains 8287 debt issues from 2437 firms headquartered in 23 different countries with debt-issuing subsidiaries in 59 countries. We analyze firms'...

This study examines the influence of a firm’s geographical location on corporate debt and provides evidence that the higher cost of collecting information on firms distant from urban areas has significant implications on a wide array of corporate debt characteristics. We find that rural firms...