Do managerial incentive horizons have capital market consequences? We find that they do when short-sale constraints are more binding. Firms experience significant stock price inflation when their CEOs have short horizon incentives. The short-horizon CEOs sell more shares at inflated prices and...

We study the impact of accelerated vesting of equity awards on takeovers, whereby the restricted stock and/or stock options of the target CEO immediately vest and become unrestricted upon the close of the acquisition. We find that takeover premiums are significantly larger when the target CEO...

China's stock market has gone through major structural changes since its inception in early 1990s. In this survey article, we review the empirical literature that document these important structural changes and published in 15 leading accounting and finance journals from 1998 to 2013. In...

In this study, we examine whether CEOs' stock-based compensation has any relationship with the disclosure of highly proprietary information. While prior studies suggest that stock-based compensation provides managers with an incentive to enhance their voluntary disclosures in general, we argue...

We study the implications of a recent governance practice promoted by proxy advisors, namely an anti-pledging policy, which limits managers' ability to unwind their equity-based compensation. Using a sample of S&P 1500 firms, we find that CEOs' pay-for-performance sensitivity (i.e., delta) and...

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...

We analyze the association of board size and stock return volatility for different firm types. First, we find significant evidence that the association is non-linear over all firms. Second, we find that this differs for different firm types. While complex firms show a negative linear...

We document that firms can effectively retain executives by granting deferred equity pay. We show this by analyzing a unique regulatory change (FAS 123-R) that prompted 723 firms to suddenly eliminate stock option vesting periods. This allowed CEOs to keep 33% more options when departing the...

We examine whether the equity incentive heterogeneity of the executive team engenders a positive externality by curtailing stock price crash risk. Supporting this prediction, we find a negative relation between the equity incentive heterogeneity of the executive team and stock price crash risk....

This study examines the role of media coverage on meritorious shareholder litigation. Asserting a causal effect of the media on litigation is normally difficult due to the endogenous nature of media coverage. However, we use the Wall Street Journal’s backdating coverage to overcome these...