We survey 401 financial executives, and conduct in-depth interviews with an additional 20, to determine the key factors that drive decisions related to performance measurement and voluntary disclosure. The majority of firms view earnings, especially EPS, as the key metric for an external...

We study dividend announcements, conditioning on whether the timing of the announcement is anticipated. We find that liquidity deteriorates before (after) anticipated (unanticipated) announcements. We identify both timing and content effects, and also contrast trading volume, price volatility,...

We survey 401 financial executives, and conduct in-depth interviews with an additional 20, to determine the key factors that drive decisions related to reported earnings and voluntary disclosure. The majority of firms view earnings, especially EPS, as the key metric for outsiders, even more so...

We survey 384 CFOs and Treasurers, and conduct in-depth interviews with an additional two dozen, to determine the key factors that drive dividend and share repurchase policies. We find that managers are very reluctant to cut dividends, that dividends are smoothed through time, and that dividend...

There are two tax incentives for corporations to hedge: To increase debt capacity and interest tax deductions, and to reduce expected tax liability if the tax function is convex. We test whether these incentives affect the extent of corporate hedging with derivatives. Using an explicit measure...

We analyze several hundred firms that expand via acquisition and/or increase their reported number of business segments. The average combined market reaction to acquisition announcements is positive but, according to the Berger and Ofek (1995) method for valuing conglomerates, the excess values...

This paper investigates the degree to which personal taxes affect corporate financing decisions. The traditional view is that interest deductibility encourages firms to use debt financing; however, some argue that the personal tax disadvantage to interest negates the corporate tax advantage at...

A model is developed that implies that if an analyst has high reputation or low ability, or if there is strong public information that is inconsistent with the analyst's private information, she is likely to herd. Herding is also common when informative private signals are positively correlated...

We quantify the tax savings from hedging by modeling major provisions of the tax code. Using data from COMPUSTAT, we simulate likely tax savings from reducing the volatility of taxable income. The average tax savings from a 5 percent volatility reduction is $142,360 or about 3 percent of taxable...

Do taxes affect corporate debt policy? This paper answers this question by testing whether the incremental use of debt is positively related to firm-specific, tax-code-consistent marginal tax rates. Using annual data for almost 10,000 firms for the years 1980-1992, evidence is provided which...