This paper examines the effect of accounting conservatism on firm-level investment during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Using a differences-in-differences design, we find that firms with less conservative financial reporting experienced a sharper decline in investment activity following...

We examine the association between board independence and the characteristics of non-GAAP earnings. Our results suggest that companies with less independent boards are more likely to opportunistically exclude recurring items from non-GAAP earnings. Specifically, we find that exclusions from...

This paper examines whether the quality of stock analysts' forecasts is related to conflicts of interest from their employers' investment banking (IB) and brokerage businesses. We consider four aspects of forecast quality: accuracy, bias, and revision frequency of quarterly earnings per share...

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,...

This study finds that pro-forma earnings forecasts by bidding firms during acquisitions are associated with a higher likelihood of deal completion, expedited deal closing, and with a lower acquisition premium − but only in stock-financed acquisitions. Analysts also respond to these forecasts...

Non-financial performance measures, such as Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) measures, are potentially leading indicators of firms' financial performance. I draw on the prior academic literature and the concept of ESG materiality to develop new corporate governance and ESG...

This study proposes and estimates a fundamental-analysis-based approach to identifying speculative components in merger and acquisition (M&A) purchase prices. I estimate the speculative component of the price as the portion that cannot be explained by the book value of the target plus a multiple...

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 evaluate the efficiency of capital deployment for acquiring firms before M&As, defined as the return on invested capital net of the cost of capital, and link this measure to firms' post-acquisition performance. Acquirers with higher, pre-acquisition net returns on investment have superior...

This paper examines changes in Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads as a proxy for default risk after M&A announcement for the companies involved. Existing literature extensively documents wealth effects triggered by M&A announcements from the shareholders' perspective, but there is limited...