We examine the effect of board independence on spending and payout policy using the 2003 NYSE and NASDAQ board independence requirements as an exogenous shock. Non-compliant firms that are forced to raise board independence reduce the spending on acquisitions and capital expenditures and...

We examine the effects of Chinese import penetration on executive compensation of US firms. We find that import penetration reduces executives' total compensation, stock grants, wealth-performance sensitivity, and opportunistic grant timing, suggesting that competition mitigates agency problems...

While existing asset pricing studies focus on macroeconomic variables to predict stock market risk premium, we find that an aggregate index of corporate activities has substantially greater predictive power both in- and out-of sample, and yields much greater economic gain for a mean-variance...

Change-in-control covenants were first introduced at the tail-end of the LBO wave in the 1980s. We report that, like bondholders in the 1980s, bondholders lacking such covenant protection experience significantly negative wealth effects of -6.76% upon the announcement of an LBO, compared to...

We find that firms substantially reduce their debt burden in ldquo;fresh-startrdquo; Chapter 11 reorganizations, yet they emerge with higher debt ratios than what is typical in their respective industries. While cross-sectional regressions reveal that post-reorganization debt ratios are more in...

Using a large sample of option granting firms, some of which were investigated for option grant backdating, we develop a predictive model for such investigations and examine how the capital market responded as the backdating scandal unfolded. Firms that were investigated experienced significant...

Extant studies document that stock returns are abnormally negative before executive option grants and abnormally positive afterward. We find that this return pattern is much weaker since August 29, 2002, when the SEC requirement that option grants must be reported within two business days took...

Using a large sample of unsolicited takeover attempts, we examine the determinants and effects of targets' choice to adopt poison pills either before or after unsolicited offers, and to initiate defensive payouts. The probability of poison pill adoptions decreases with insider ownership, whereas...