We examine how clawback provisions and board monitoring affect managers' use of discretion to achieve earnings targets. Using an experiment, we find that when board monitoring is weak, imposing clawback provisions has little impact on the total amount of earnings management activity. This null...

Mutual fund holdings data reveal a significant impact of mutual funds on the capital expenditures ("CapEx'') of their portfolio companies. Following the shock to mutual fund ownership caused by the 2003 scandal, during which 25 fund families experienced significant outflows of capital, firms...

This study examines the influence of institutional dual-holders, whose portfolios hold both loans and equity securities of the same firms, on those firms’ disclosures. Using mergers between institutional shareholders and lenders to the same firms as exogenous shocks to identify firms with...

The well-established negative correlation between staggered boards (SBs) and firm value could be due to SBs leading to lower value or a reflection of low-value firms' greater propensity to maintain SBs. We analyze the causal question using a natural experiment involving two Delaware court...

Using an experimental design that exploits exogenous reductions in coverage resulting from brokerage house mergers, we find that a reduction in coverage causes a deterioration in financial reporting quality. The effect of coverage on disclosure is more pronounced for firms with weak shareholder...