Traditional finance theory suggests that riskier investments should yield higher returns. Challenging this notion, anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that highly-incented managers may take on excessive risk, leading to greater losses, while other theoretical research argues that high...

We document that CEO cash compensation is twice as sensitive to negative stock returns as it is to positive stock returns. Since stock returns include both unrealized gains and unrealized losses, we expect cash compensation to be less sensitive to stock returns when returns contain unrealized...

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...

We develop a measurement-error framework for assessing the quality of relative-performance metrics designed to filter out the systematic component of performance, and analyze relative total shareholder return (rTSR)-the predominant metric market participants use to isolate managers'...

The interdependences of payment schemes, returns and the existence of a works council are analysed by using data collected on German firms in the sector of mechanical engineering. There is no connection between payment schemes and returns, whereas a works council has a negative effect on a...

We study the effects of the predictability in stock returns for the fair value of American Executive Stock Options (ESOs). By assuming a trending Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process for stock returns, we solve for the executive's optimal exercise policy using a methodology based on the least-squares...

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 paper studies the first day return of 227 carve-outs during 1996-2013. I find that the first day return of newly issued subsidiary stocks is explained by the reporting distortions in the pre IPO period, conditioned on whether the executives and directors of the subsidiary received stock...

We document negative stock returns and elevated trading volumes around executives' early option exercise disclosures post-SOX but not pre-SOX. This stock price reaction is incomplete, and the negative stock price drift is smaller post-SOX compared to pre-SOX. We also show effects of media...

Does a company's stock mispricing influence its decision to issue an earnings forecast? Does executive compensation affect the nature of the forecast? How does the market react to these forecasts? I address these questions using cross-sectional and time-series variation in stock mispricing...