We examine the association between CEO severance pay (i.e., payment a CEO would receive if s/he is involuntarily terminated) and corporate tax planning activities. We find that CEO severance pay is positively associated with corporate tax planning, consistent with CEO severance pay providing...

Internally-promoted CEOs should have a deep understanding of their firm's products, supply chain, operations, business climate, corporate culture, and how to navigate among employees to get the information they need. Thus, we argue that internally-promoted CEOs are likely to produce higher...

Efficient contracting predicts that ex-ante severance pay contracts are offered to CEOs as protection against downside risk and to encourage investment in risky positive net-present-value projects. Consistent with this prediction, we find that ex-ante contracted severance pay is positively...

We examine the relation between the proportion of a firm’s top management team that is appointed during a CEO’s tenure (i.e., top management team, or TMT, co-option) and audit pricing. Using a sample of U.S. firms during the 2001-2018 period, we find that TMT co-option is positively...