We use a large pictorial sample of Chinese financial analysts to test the association between facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) and performance in men. Financial analysts offer an ideal setting for our investigation because we can objectively track individual analysts' behaviors and...

Security regulations are enforced by SEC staff members. Conceptually, the regulations are to be uniformly enforced despite personal differences among SEC enforcers. We offer evidence to the contrary. Using the SEC's comment letters as our setting, we find that SEC staff members exhibit unique...

We examine how political corruption affects firms' accounting choices. We hypothesize and find that firms headquartered in corrupt districts manipulate earnings downwards, relative to firms headquartered elsewhere. Our finding is robust to alternative corruption measures, restatement-based...

Reported earnings per share (EPS) are frequently rounded to the nearest cent. This paper provides evidence that firms manipulate earnings so that they can round-up and report one more cent of EPS. Specifically, we examine the digit immediately right of the decimal in the calculated earnings per...

This study examines the ability of analysts to forecast future firm performance, based on the selective coverage of newly public firms. We hypothesize that the decision to provide coverage contains information about an analyst's underlying expectation of a firm's future prospects. We extract...

We hypothesize that the arrival of star analysts improves the performance of incumbent financial analysts while the departure of star analysts has the opposite effect. Our results consistent with this hypothesis are concentrated primarily in the tests related to star arrivals. Our findings are...

We hypothesize that the arrival of star analysts improves the performance of incumbent financial analysts while the departure of star analysts has the opposite effect. Our results consistent with this hypothesis are concentrated primarily in the tests related to star arrivals. Our findings are...

In Chinese culture, certain digits are lucky and others unlucky. We test how such numerological superstition affects financial decision in the China IPO market. We find that the frequency of lucky numerical stock listing codes exceeds what would be expected by chance. Also consistent with...

The taxation of realized capital gains creates a lock-in effect, increasing an investor's expected holding period. We show that the unrealized capital gains of mutual funds are positively associated with the earnings quality of their portfolio firms. Consistent with tax-induced lock-in, the...

We use a large pictorial sample of Chinese financial analysts to test the association between facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) and performance in men. Financial analysts offer an ideal setting for our investigation because we can objectively track individual analysts' behaviors and...