We examine how suppliers' relationship-specific cost structure decisions affect future performance. We argue that suppliers can avoid risk by choosing more flexible cost structures (less fixed-to-variable costs) or commit resources by choosing more rigid cost structures (more fixed-to-variable...

Earnings announcements are clustered in calendar time and such clusters, referred to as earnings seasons, are characterized by intense arrival of information from firms in an industry. The news arrives not only from earnings announcement by the firm, announced news, but also from pre-emptive...

This study examines internal capital market inefficiencies and U.S. multinational firms' return of capital to shareholders. Using dividends and repurchases to measure the return of capital, we first document a difference in the relations between shareholder payouts and cash held either...

Prior studies document both an improvement and deterioration in the future operating performance of firms engaging in real earnings management (REM) to meet earnings benchmarks. These results suggest that some firms use REM to signal their favorable prospects, whereas others use REM...

Both practitioners and academics are increasingly focusing their attention on the riskiness of firms' tax planning activities. In this study, we examine how external auditors respond to tax risk, measured using the volatility of firms' annual cash and GAAP effective tax rates. Consistent with...

Financial analysts and accounting regulators encourage companies to disclose the disaggregation of total capital expenditures (CAPX) into the portion of capital investment intended to sustain current performance (maintenance CAPX (MCAPX)), and the portion invested in new projects/assets to...

This study examines gender pay gaps among nonprofit executives and how compensation negotiability influences this disparity. Using tax return data from IRS Form 990 filings, we find that females earn 8.9 percent lower total compensation than men in our sample. Further, we observe that settings...

We examine changes in firms' discretionary accounting accruals around the commencement of activism by hedge funds. We argue that hedge funds have the potential to provide increased monitoring of earnings management behavior and we predict and find empirically that average discretionary accruals...

In this paper I hypothesize and find that both shareholder rights and debt have significant effects on firm-employee relationships. I find that, consistent with ineffective resource management, firms with weaker governance have more employees per assets and are more likely to hire due to sales...