This paper examines insider trading in light of the recent Supreme Court case of United States v. O'Hagan. The authors conclude that the Supreme Court left many questions unanswered and even raised some new questions. Unless Congress defines insider trading and clarifies what constitutes illegal...

Ascertaining which enforcement mechanisms work to protect investors has been both a focus of recent work in academic finance and an issue for policy-making at international development agencies. According to recent academic work, private enforcement of investor protection via both disclosure and...

This paper studies short- and long-run effects of disclosure of compliance with the German Corporate Governance Code. First, we present an analysis of firms' compliance with the Code. Second, event study results suggest that aggregate market and firm values are unaffected, although there was...

In the standard rhetoric of the corporate law literature, federalism is quot;the genius of American corporate lawquot; - an engine of efficiency, motivating a race (or at least a leisurely walk) to the top. Some have dissented, suggesting that the prevailing wisdom is wrong as to either the...

We document pervasive informed trading activity in equity options before M&A announcements. About 25% of takeovers have positive abnormal volumes. These volume patterns indicate that informed traders are likely using bullish directional strategies for the target and volatility strategies for the...

An audit committee with financial expertise is expected to strengthen the firms' internal control system, and consequently, contribute to reliable and relevant financial reporting. The controversial definition of financial expert was intensively commented on before the Securities and Exchange...

We find that investors responded positively to a mandated gender quota in Korea, which requires large public firms to include at least one female director on their boards. Investor responses were more positive for firms with high risk, weak corporate governance, and poor social performance,...

Preemptive rights are thought to protect minority shareholders from cheap-stock tunneling by a controlling shareholder. We show that preemptive rights, while making cheap-stock tunneling more difficult, cannot prevent it when asymmetric information about the value of the offered shares makes it...

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates firms for financial fraud, investors only learn about the investigation if managers disclose it, or regulators sanction the firm. We investigate the effects of such disclosures using confidential records on all investigations,...