We study corporate philanthropy using an original database that includes firm-level data on dollar giving, giving priorities, governance, and managerial involvement in giving programs. Results provide some support for the theory that giving enhances shareholder value, as firms in the same...

The corporate governance literature is rich with empirical tests of the relation between board composition and firm performance. We consider the effect of board composition on a different measure of performance, the probability a firm will be sued by shareholders. We find firms that are...

Corporations in the United States have come under intense scrutiny for how they report their finances. Enforcement of financial regulation in the United States depends on both the actions of the SEC and private citizens. Because of limited enforcement resources, the SEC argues that private suits...

It is generally agreed that boards are endogenously determined institutions that serve both an oversight and advisory role in a firm. While the oversight role of boards has been extensively studied, relatively few studies have examined the advisory role of corporate boards. We examine the...

The existing literature does not agree on the optimal jury size. We demonstrate that the probability of type I and type II errors is not sensitive to the number of jurors under the following three conditions: jurors received independent signals about a defendant's guilt during the evidence stage...

The corporate governance literature is rich with empirical tests of the relation between board composition and firm performance. We consider the effect of board composition on a different measure of performance, the probability a firm will be sued by shareholders. We find firms that are...

It is generally agreed that boards are endogenously determined institutions that serve both an oversight and advisory role in a firm. While the oversight role of boards has been extensively studied, relatively few studies have examined the advisory role of corporate boards. We examine the...

Since 1957, New York courts have required contingent fee lawyers to file “closing statements” that disclose settlement amounts, lawyers' fees, an accounting of expenses, and other information. This article provides preliminary analysis of these data for the period 2004-2013. Among this...

New York “closing statement” data provide unique insight into settlement and selection. The distributions of settlements and adjudicated damages are remarkably similar, and the average settlement is very close to the average judgment. One interpretation is that selection effects may be small...

We show that under arguably plausible assumptions regarding the DNA exoneration process, in expectation, the ratio of DNA exoneration rates across races among defendants convicted for the same crime in the same state provides an upper bound on the ratio of wrongful conviction rates across races...