We examine how directors' reputations are managed through disclosure choices. We focus on disclosures in the director biographies in proxy statements filed with the SEC. We find that a directorship on another board is more likely to be undisclosed when the other firm experienced an adverse event...

<p>This document contains presentation slides for the American Finance Association's Presidential Address of January 4, 2020. The address is based on the paper "Social Transmission Bias in Economics and Finance."</p><p>The paper: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=3550880" https://ssrn.com/abstract=3550880...</p>

<p>I discuss a new intellectual paradigm, social economics and finance: the study of the social processes that shape economic thinking and behavior. This emerging field recognizes that people observe and talk to each other. A key, underexploited building block of social economics and finance is...</p>

We use a unique dataset to examine the link between ESG disclosure and quality through a cross-country comparison of disclosure requirements and stewardship codes. We find a strong relationship between the extent of ESG disclosure and the quality of a firm's disclosure. Furthermore, we find that...

This paper analyses supply of and demand for financial information in a setting where proprietary cost seems the primary driver for a firm's public disclosure decision. The empirical setting is mandatory public disclosure of annual reports by private firms in the Netherlands. As these firms have...

We examine the voluntary disclosure behavior of peer firms of hostile takeover targets. We find that peer firms under control threat use a disclosure strategy that emphasizes bad news: they provide more bad news forecasts, tend to bundle bad news forecasts with earnings announcements, use more...

We derive a measure of earnings management cost and the associated equilibrium level of earnings management from the cross-sectional properties of earnings and prices. This approach enables us to separate economic shocks from reporting discretion by modeling the economic trade-off faced by...

The paper presents the theoretical framework explaining the primary cause of mergers of the service-oriented firms. Using the example of equity analyst firms, I analyze the motivation behind these mergers. The analysis is not limited to the aforementioned type of firms and could be extended to...

In this paper, we begin by discussing concerns that existing reporting practices, including those used on quarterly earnings calls, underweight ESG disclosures and amplify short-term pressures on corporate management. We survey the broad market trends that are encouraging greater focus on ESG...

This study examines management of operating cash flows, its causes, and the market's reaction to such management. Applying a Burgstahler and Dichev (1997)/Degeorge et al. (1999) type methodology and the best-fitted distribution method, I find indications that managers take actions to report...