We propose and find that aggregating a small number of earnings signals from highly macroeconomically exposed firms yields an informative leading indicator of future GDP. This challenges the convention of defining aggregate earnings using a comprehensive set of public earnings signals. Our...

Despite growing investor reliance on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings, we know relatively little about how such ratings are constructed. Recent evidence of disagreement across ESG ratings raises concerns about their credibility. We note that while reputational concerns likely...

Participant lenders in syndicated loans depend on information collected by the lead lender for borrower screening and monitoring, as the lead lender is primarily responsible for ex-ante due diligence in evaluating borrowers. This gives rise to both moral hazard and adverse selection concerns...

We use big data on customer shopping patterns to explain variation in the persistence of a company’s revenues and earnings. Using GPS location data from customers’ mobile devices that encompasses nearly 2.9 billion visits to over 1 million retail locations belonging to 285 U.S. companies, we...

We examine whether auditor style is associated with non-GAAP disclosures. Specifically, we find that clients audited by the same auditor are more likely to disclose non-GAAP earnings in a similar manner. We assess disclosure similarity using (1) the decision to disclose non-GAAP earnings, (2)...

We examine stakeholder responses to publicly traded firms speaking out on voting reform laws in the U.S. State of Georgia via the lens of retail customer store traffic. For firms that speak out, we find that the number of customer visits and the number of visitors at their individual store...