Conventional wisdom maintains that pharmaceutical prices in Canada are low, in comparison to the United States, because of government price controls administered by Canada's Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB). But a careful examination of the economics of Canada's pharmaceutical...

Using 14,800 forecasts of one-year S&P 500 returns made by Chief Financial Officers over a 12-year period, we track the individual executives who provide multiple forecasts to study how their beliefs evolve dynamically. While CFOs’ return forecasts are systematically unbiased, their confidence...

This chapter reviews tax research related to whether corporate and personal taxes affect domestic and multinational capital structure, debt maturity, payout policy, compensation policy, risk management, earnings management, leasing, pensions, R&D partnerships, tax shelters, transfer pricing,...

Employees' annual earnings fall by 13% the year their firm files for bankruptcy, and the present value of lost earnings from bankruptcy to six years following bankruptcy is 87% of pre-bankruptcy annual earnings. More worker earnings are lost in thin labor markets and among small firms. Ex ante...

We use the COVID shock to study the direct and interactive effects of several forms of corporate flexibility on short- and long-term real business plans. We find that i) workplace flexibility, namely the ability for employees to work remotely, plays a central role in determining firms’...

We present interview evidence from financial executives that highlights how thinking about culture in a quantitative way and making continuous investments in culture can amplify success, improve firm value, and help employees thrive in the new world of work. By reporting financial executives’...

We survey 1,050 CFOs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia to assess whether their firms are credit constrained during the global credit crisis of 2008. We study whether corporate spending plans differ conditional on this measure of financial constraint. Our evidence indicates that constrained firms...

This paper conducts surveys that document CFO perspectives on corporate planning, corporate investment, capital structure, payout, and the goal of the firm. Current policy choices are compared to CFO survey data from two decades prior, which allows me to identify decision-making themes that are...