Competent public agencies are associated with better economic outcomes. Beyond competence, political leaders need to secure the loyalty of their agencies. Unfortunately, several theories predict a tradeoff between these two valued features. This paper finds that recruitment into agencies is...

This paper studies how investors infer CEO commitment to honesty from earnings management and how these perceptions – in conjunction with investors’ own social and moral preferences – shape their investment choices. We conduct two laboratory experiments simulating investment choices. Our...

Donald Trump's surprise election shifted expectations: corporate taxes would be lower and trade policies more restrictive. Relative stock prices responded appropriately. High-tax firms and those with large deferred tax liabilities (DTLs) gained; those with significant deferred tax assets from net...

Managers conducting earnings conference calls display distinctive styles in their word choice. Some CEOs and CFOs routinely use qualifying words such as "approximately", "probably", and "maybe". They are vague talkers. Straight talkers, by contrast, use such words less frequently. Analysts and...

We develop and apply a new method for estimating the economic benefits of an environmental amenity. The method fits within the household production framework (Becker 1965), and is based upon the notion of estimating the derived demand for a privately traded option to utilize a freely-available...