We analyze a manager's optimal disclosure policy in a market in which some traders are confirmation-biased and ignore information inconsistent with their priors. The disclosed signal informs traders about the manager's unknown ability. By exerting costly effort, the manager can increase the...

This study examined Taiwanese listed company and OTC (Over-the-Counter) firms to explore empirically managerial overconfidence and compensation incentives induced risk-taking, and the impact on accrualbased earnings management (AEM) and real earnings management (REM). The study results show that...

We present evidence that, following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, firms responded to the increased requirement for outside director monitoring by substituting insiders with outside directors who have social or professional connections to their CEOs. This substitution was most...

We investigate the effect of CEO hedging on the likelihood and characteristics of M&A decisions. Because of their higher degree of risk tolerance, hedged CEOs are more likely to engage in M&As and are more likely to acquire private and smaller targets. M&A deals by hedged CEOs appear to create...

Using merger documents filed with the SEC from 1994 to 2018, we show that being selected by investment banks as “comparable peers” are more than twice as likely to become a target themselves in the future compared to control firms matched for industry and size. They also experience an...

After decades of de-prioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's “best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid firms. We find that...

The impact of the announcement of a takeover bid has been widely tested in foreign literature. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to research the impact of the announcement of a takeover bid on the share price movements in the Croatian capital market and whether the results are consistent...

I review the empirical literature on word of mouth (WOM) among investors. I begin with an outline of the empirical challenges that WOM research faces and possible strategies to overcome those challenges. I then discuss recent studies on WOM among retail and institutional investors. The research...

In the finance industry, risk compliance has become an important issue after numerous policy violations resulting in significant costs for financial institutions and society as a whole. Little evidence currently exists on the drivers of non-compliant behavior. We run a lab-in-the-field...

We study how lenders respond to excessive optimism in the corporate sector. Our identification relies on plausibly exogenous variation in optimism across areas in Italy. We document that firms in optimistic areas hold favorable views about their own business, and that they are more likely to...