Weak creditor rights introduce contracting frictions and magnify conflicts of interest between borrowers and creditors. We examine the effects of creditor rights on the sensitivity of bank lending terms to aggregate relative to firm-specific information. We formulate two competing hypotheses. On...

This paper examines the impact of investor heterogeneity on trading. Institutional investors play a crucial role in the information environment of firms. We argue that heterogeneity in the information ability of institutional investors has a significant impact on trading around information...

In spite of considerable research into firm dividend behavior, dividend smoothing has eluded a definitive explanation. This paper provides an agency interpretation of dividend smoothing and offers evidence that variation in corporate governance and managerial incentive conflicts explains...

We examine the impact of information flows on financing and the relative roles of hard information, soft information, and certification of issuer quality by third parties, using novel evidence from the US securities-based crowdfunding market. While hard information about the issuer's financial...

We examine how monitoring costs and costs of financial distress affect the use of performance pricing provisions in bank loan contracts. We find that firms that are easier to monitor, such as those with better accounting quality, lower information opacity, or a stronger prior relationship with...

We address two aspects of board dynamics — group-think and teamwork — that both arise from increased director overlap. Overlap captures the extent of common service by board directors. Greater overlap can lead to excessive cohesiveness of the group and thus group-think, where the desire for...