The proposed new SEC (2022) rules suggest that the information risk may be unusually high for companies going public by merging with SPACs (“SPAC-IPOs”). We study the merits of this “information risk” hypothesis and then examine whether the high information risk also explains...

Prior analyst literature focuses on the impact of financial analysts on the firms they cover, and prior information-transfer literature concentrates on the externalities of information provided by management. This paper fills gaps in both streams of literature by examining the focal firm's...

Corporate spinoffs are important events that are accompanied by valuation and credit-risk implications for the parent firm. Among other benefits, spinoffs can improve corporate focus and enhance valuation transparency. In the debt-contracting context, however, spinoffs can also be associated...

Past research shows that the outcomes of acquisitions of private firms are better than those of public firms. This finding is commonly explained by the price discount due to illiquidity and the higher information risk involved in acquiring private firms. Existing studies do not separate the two...

In this study, we examine whether CEOs' stock-based compensation has any relationship with the disclosure of highly proprietary information. While prior studies suggest that stock-based compensation provides managers with an incentive to enhance their voluntary disclosures in general, we argue...

We compare non-GAAP EPS in annual earnings announcements and proxy statements using hand-collected data from SEC filings. We find that proxies for capital market incentives (contracting incentives) are more highly associated with disclosure of non-GAAP EPS in annual earnings announcements (proxy...

This study examines the association between chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence and future stock price crash risk. Overconfident managers overestimate the returns to their investment projects and misperceive negative net present value (NPV) projects as value creating. They also tend to...

This paper examines changes in acquirer and target companies' Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads as a proxy for default risk around official mergers and acquisitions (M&A) announce-ments. Related literature extensively documents wealth effects triggered by M&A from the shareholders' perspective,...

Exploring staggered quasi-exogenous regulatory changes in China, we find that banking sector FDI significantly reduces the likelihood of stock price crashes of domestic listed firms. The effect is more pronounced among firms with ex-ante lower disclosure quality and worse performances, which...

An emerging stream of research documents that experience of traumatic events early in a CEO's life influences the firm's investment and financing choices. We extend this research by examining the impact of CEO early-life natural disaster experience on stock price crash risk. Using a longitudinal...