We analyze the effects of partisan Congressional control on the US economy. We find that economic performance is weaker when no party has the majority in both chambers of Congress (divided Congress). This weaker economic performance is caused by reduced and less effective regulation during...

We find that investors are fixated on analysts' consensus outputs (earnings forecasts, recommendations, and forecast dispersion), which can be inferior signals compared to the corresponding outputs provided by high-quality analysts, especially when a large number of high-quality analysts follow...

Motivated by theoretical models in economics which show that there is matching between CEO skill and firm size, we introduce a new measure of director skill which is based on the aggregate size of firms on which the director serves as an independent director. We validate our measure by showing...

Analysts' functions are divided into discovery and interpretation roles, but separating between the two is non-trivial. We conjecture that analysts' interpretation skill can be gauged by their forecast revisions following material unanticipated news — in particular following non-earnings 8-K...

The paper analyzes the relation between growth and income inequality in the US during the post-war years (1953–2008). We show that the income of the top income groups is more sensitive to growth, defined broadly as current growth and changes in expectations of future growth, compared to the...