Using a global sample of 2,357 attempted initial coin offerings (ICOs), we examine whether ICO rating providers act as information intermediaries that may reduce information asymmetry and the associated adverse selection problem in the crypto-tokens market. We find that issuer-supplied voluntary...

Decentralized finance (DeFi) represents a large capital market where users conduct transactions primarily through digital smart contracts. These contracts are susceptible to cyber-attacks and coding errors that can result in significant financial losses, which has led to the emergence of smart...

This study examines how managers change their forecasting behavior as a debt covenant violation (DCV) approaches. Consistent with a change, we find that management forecasts are more optimistic in the quarter before a DCV, and this result is stronger when firms face a higher risk of shifting...

We leverage the release of standardized Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO-1) reports for over 800 federal contractors to provide empirical evidence on public firms’ diversity practices. Using unique data for 2016-2020, we first document that public firms significantly lack diversity,...

We explore the landscape of public company auditing around the introduction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1934. Using a broad sample of historical annual reports spanning several decades, we document that most public companies obtained audits even before the SEC’s audit...

Using securities lawsuits related to M&A as an industry shock, we examine whether litigation risk acts as an external governance mechanism by disciplining managers' investment decisions. In the two years following an M&A lawsuit (a lawsuit where plaintiffs allege that the firm hid poor...

We use payroll data from a Big 4 accounting firm to examine the starting wage differentials for H-1B visa holders. Prior research in other industries has found both positive and negative differentials, but primarily relies on surveyed salary data. We observe that relative to U.S. citizen new...

We construct a measure of analyst-level distraction based on analysts' exposure to exogenous attention-grabbing events affecting firms under coverage. We find that temporarily distracted analysts achieve lower forecast accuracy, revise forecasts less frequently, and publish less informative...