This study examines the market response to the 1999 announcement of a change in accounting for Funds from Operations (FFO) for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). This change provides an increase in transparency in the accounting statements of REITs regarding the calculation of FFO. An...

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...

Most large companies voluntarily disclose information about their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. We use experimental markets to examine how managers' disclosures of a particular type of CSR, green investment, affect investors' bidding behavior. We find that, although in our...

We exploit information in option prices in order to study whether the ex post responsiveness of tock prices to earnings information is reflected from an ex ante, firm- and quarter-specific perspective. Specifically, we develop a measure of anticipated information content (AIC) that isolates the...

We show that a lack of investor trust affects the revision of cash flow expectations and delays the incorporation of accounting information into the stock price. To overcome investors' dependence on trust, managers can obtain external certification—either through credit ratings or by employing...

In this paper we note that unrelated research in the management and finance fields, if combined, makes predictions concerning board reforms in emerging countries. Specifically, outside directors' demographic characteristics that are salient to foreign investors should reduce stock price...

The forthright brand of shareholder activism hedge funds deploy became during the 2000s a significant feature of Canadian corporate governance. This paper examines hedge fund activism “Canadian style.” The paper characterizes the interventions hedge funds specialize in as “offensive”...

Skewness preference, the tendency to overweight the probability of extreme tail events, can affect managerial decision making. We find that Chinese listed firms managed by CEOs who experienced a largely unpredictable rare event, namely the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in...

This paper examines the governance role of hedge fund activists by analyzing the impact of these activists on CEO turnover, CEO pay, and CEO pay-performance link in targeted companies. Using the difference-in-difference approach, we first find significantly higher CEO turnover following hedge...