We consider a government that aims at reducing the debt-to-(gross domestic product) (GDP) ratio of a country. The government observes the level of the debt-to-GDP ratio and an indicator of the state of the economy, but does not directly observe the development of the underlying macroeconomic...

We propose a behavioral signaling explanation for the positive announcement effects of stock splits. There are two key behavioral ingredients in our model. First, (retail) investors have misconceptions about stock splits that make them view stock splits as good news. Second, investors are...

The personal traits of chief executive officers (CEOs) have been found to influence corporate policy decisions. We examine the impact of past professional distress experiences on payout policy. We hypothesize that CEOs experiencing a distress event in their past career, before becoming CEO,...

This paper examines the role of local risk-taking propensity on dividend demand and corporate payout by using a novel measure. We empirically investigate geographically varying dividend demand and corporate dividend policies by using local creative culture as a measure of local risk-taking...

We hypothesize that when managers do not exercise their options, they signal valuable private information. Accordingly, we construct a proxy to capture managers’ private information from their in-the-money vested options unexercised (VOU) and find a positive relation with subsequent operating...

Why do listed firms herd to repurchase shares? Analyzing complete repurchase records from the Chinese stock market from 2005 to 2021, we discover that firms aiming to boost stock prices through repurchasing shares drive the tendency for peers to also make repurchasing announcements. The positive...

We study herded stock repurchase using complete repurchase records from Chinese stock markets from 2005 to 2021. The data suggests that only repurchase decisions aiming to boost the stock price, among other purposes, significantly increase peer firms' tendency to follow. Such herding behavior...

This study assessed the relationship between dividend yield and financial performance of the listed companies at Nairobi Securities Exchange. Bird in hand theory anchored the study. An explanatory research design was adopted where all the 62 firms listed in Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)...

We examine the effects of CEO big five personalities (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) on their annual compensation. We hand-collect the S&P 1500 CEO tweets and use IBM personality insights to measure CEO personality. CEOs with high ratings of...

The effects of sentiment should be strongest during times of heightened valuation uncertainty. As such, we document a significant amplifying role for market uncertainty in the relation between sentiment and aggregate investment. A one-standard-deviation increase in uncertainty more than doubles...