We investigate the backdating of stock option exercises. Before SOX, we find evidence that some exercises were backdated to days with low stock prices. Consistent with a tax-based incentive, these suspect exercises are more likely when the personal tax savings from backdating are higher....

The theory of tax clienteles for dividend policies predicts that after a firm initiates a cash dividend, the ownership of its equity by tax-exempt/tax-deferred and corporate investors will increase as these investors purchase shares of stock that are being sold by individual investors for whom...

We compare executive equity incentives of firms accused of accounting fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during the period 1996-2003 with two samples of firms not accused of fraud. We measure equity incentives in a variety of ways and employ a battery of empirical tests. We...