This study investigates the impact of Delaware law on the composition and size of the board of directors. Our empirical evidence reveals that Delaware firms have smaller and more independent boards than their non-Delaware counterparts. Given that we find no value-premium for firms that...

Not all firms that intend to go private do so successfully. A number of management buyouts are announced but subsequently withdrawn. It is documented in this study that the stock market reacts negatively to MBO withdrawal announcement. This adverse effect, however, is alleviated in firms where...

We relate the agency issues inherent in management buyouts and in earnings management. Income-reducing earnings management occurs prior to management buyouts. When insiders own small amounts of stock, outside monitoring mechanisms such as institutional ownership and Big Six audit firms reduce...

Prior research reports that financial performance of firms that hire interim CEO successors is worse following interim CEO appointments than those that hire permanent successors. We find that this underperformance occurs only following voluntary turnover interim appointments, which represent a...

By examining only firms that experience net losses and negative cash flows, we are able to analyze a sample of firms that face a discrete refinancing point with no internal equity available, as well as a liquidity mismatch between assets and liabilities. These unique characteristics of our...

We relate impression and earnings management to the field of ethnostatistics, the study of how statistics are produced and managed. By further linking impression management and agency theory, we show that earnings management may exacerbate agency problems. We hypothesize that earnings-increasing...

Companies change auditors for a variety of reasons. At one end of the continuum, companies change auditors to improve operating performance. At the other, managers change auditors to enhance their own position. If auditor changes are driven by managerial opportunism, companies may increase their...

Grounded in agency theory, this study investigates how the strength of shareholder rights influences the extent of firm diversification and the excess value attributable to diversification. The empirical evidence reveals that the strength of shareholder rights is inversely related to the...

Previous studies show that co-managers mainly affect IPO aftermarket activities. We investigate the role of co-managers in IPO premarket activities. We argue that co-managers help reduce IPO placement risk and hypothesize that IPO issuers hire more co-managers when placement risk is higher. We...