Social skills are important but difficult to measure. So far, few empirical studies have examined the effect of social skills on the performance of professionals. Using the number of LinkedIn connections as a proxy for social skills, we investigate the effect of financial analysts’ social...

This study examines whether and how stock exchange self-regulation affects stock market liquidity and corporate transparency. Using a large sample of firms from 46 stock exchanges from 2001 to 2015, we find significant and robust evidence that firms listed in self-regulated stock exchange are...

Auditors are required by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other rules to evaluate the probability that a firm's management bribes foreign government officials. If the auditors comply with these rules by assessing higher audit risk for firms with operations in corrupt foreign countries, we...

Motivated by institutional theory, we investigate and find results consistent with firms imitating the accounting of peers headquartered in the same location. Using a large sample of observations from 1993 to 2017, we find both statistically and economically significant evidence that firms have...

In state owned enterprises (SOEs), taxes are a dividend to the controlling shareholder, the state, but a cost to other shareholders. We examine publicly traded firms in China and find significantly lower tax avoidance by SOEs relative to non-SOEs. The differences are pronounced for locally...

This study examines the effect of legal environment on corporate state income tax avoidance. We find that the extent of penalties on corporate officers reduces state tax avoidance. However, we find no evidence that the extent of penalties on shareholders reduces state tax avoidance. Thus, the...

Based on the theoretical framework of Lambert, Leuz, and Verrecchia (2007), I predict that higher earnings quality of economically related public firms reduces a firm's systematic market risk. Using alternative sets of economically related firms, this study provides significant evidence...

Extensive prior research documents significant inefficiencies of corporate capital expenditures. However, a firm's internal investment decision process remains mostly a black box. Using manually collected data, we document significant variations in capital expenditure budget execution....