We examine the effect of hierarchy on analyst teams' performance using a large sample of financial analysts from China. Hierarchy, defined as the disparity in power or status within a group, which we operationalise as the difference in experience between the senior and junior analyst in a team,...

We examine the effects of the world's first comply-or-explain dividend regulation in China's Shanghai Stock Exchange, which requires firms to either pay at least 30% of profits as dividends or explain the use of funds. We find that many firms increased their payout ratio to comply, by increasing...

We empirically examine whether adopting a uniform set of accounting standards mitigates information frictions in financial markets and facilitates market integration. Using a difference-in-difference design, we find that after the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards...

This paper examines whether dividend policy is associated with earnings management and whether the relationship varies across countries with wide-ranging degrees of institutional strength and transparency. Based on a sample of 23,429 corporations from 29 countries, we show that dividend payers...

We examine whether religion affects the terms of bank loans. We hypothesize that lenders value the traits of religious adherents, such as risk aversion, ethical behavior and honesty, and thus offer favorable loan terms to religious borrowers. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that...

Kothari, Lewellen and Warner (2006) document that in the U.S. market aggregate earnings changes are negatively related to contemporaneous market returns. This is puzzling given the well-documented evidence that firm-level earnings changes are positively related to stock returns. In this study we...

We examine, in a controlled experimental setting, whether changes in investor mood cause changes in the determinants of stock prices. Our results show that a deterioration in mood, reflected in the negative dimensions of mood state, increases the level of risk aversion in male, but not female,...

Prior research (Behn et al. 2008) suggests that higher audit quality is associated with increased accuracy and reduced dispersion in earnings forecasts issued by sell-side analysts. We extend this work to consider how audit quality impacts the information environment in which analysts operate....

We test the proposition in Johnstone (2016) that new information may lead to higher, rather than lower, uncertainty about firms' future payoffs. Based on the Bayesian rule, we hypothesize earnings news that is inconsistent with investors' prior belief will lead to higher market uncertainty....