Do credit ratings affect the information content of corporate disclosure? Using novel data on rating analysts to obtain exogenous variation in rating information, we find that greater uncertainty in credit ratings increases the quality of information disclosed by the firm. This is consistent...

As part of the SEC's revision of Regulation S-K, many investors proposed the mandatory disclosure of sustainability information in the form of environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. However, progress is contingent on collecting evidence regarding which sustainability disclosures are...

We test whether agency conflicts generated by the divergence between insider voting rights and cash flow rights (i.e., disproportionate insider control) within dual-class firms reduce the informativeness of stock returns about future earnings. We find that the future earnings response...

This paper explores corporate disclosure in a dynamic oligopoly setting. In each period, a firm receives a signal on market size and must decide whether or not to publicly disclose the information before engaging in price competition in the product market. The main insight here is that firms'...

Managers' voluntary disclosure of forward-looking earnings information results in stock prices reflecting that information prior to the fiscal period when the corresponding earnings are announced. We predict that forward-looking management earnings forecasts (MFs) will lead to a weaker relation...

We examine how performance management practices that render employee accomplishments transparent in an organization depend on employees’ hierarchical level. We consider a principal-agent model of an organization where the principal contracts directly with a group of higher-level agent-workers...

We investigate the extent to which market participants use compensation payouts released in the DEF 14A proxy statement (DEF14A) to assess future firm performance by examining sell-side analysts' earnings forecasts. Consistent with prior work, we confirm that CEO compensation unexplained by...

We investigate the extent to which market participants use compensation payouts released in the DEF 14A proxy statement (DEF14A) to assess future firm performance by examining sell-side analysts' earnings forecasts. Consistent with prior work, we confirm that CEO compensation unexplained by...

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...

Management earnings guidance is one of the primary sources of earnings expectations for market participants. Broadly speaking, managers disclose their guidance either quantitatively or qualitatively. Comparing these guidance forms by type of news, I find that qualitative bad news forecasts are...