Are “full audits” cost-effective in improving financial reporting quality compared to “reviews,” which are based primarily on analytical procedures and inquiries? The answer is important because independent verification cost-effectiveness is being challenged globally and recent advances...

We study the design of stress tests that provide information about aggregate and idiosyncratic risk in banks’ portfolios and impose contingent capital requirements. In the optimal static test, an adverse scenario fails all weak and some strong banks, limiting the stigma of failure. Sequential...

We develop and test explanations for sources of intertemporal variation in the information content of aggregate earnings and how that variation explains variation in the relation between aggregate earnings growth and market returns over time. We find that the correlation between aggregate...

This study assesses whether the accrual-generating process is adequately described by a linear model with respect to a range of underlying determinants examined by prior literature. We document substantial departures from linearity across the distributions of accrual determinants, including...

What is luck in the opinion of entrepreneurs, how does it affect decisions, and what role does it play in firm performance? For an answer we rely on a unique survey of 63,202 individuals. Luck perceptions shape decisions. Individuals who believe luck is important are reluctant to become...

Individual investors trade excessively, sell winners too soon, and overweight stocks with lottery features and low expected returns. This paper proposes and models a financial innovation, called stock loan lotteries, that improves individual investor performance. An individual investor signs a...

Competition plays an ambiguous role in nursing home markets where public and private payers coexist. Using U.S. nursing home data with a wide range of market structures, we find a U-shaped relationship between competition and service quality when nursing homes serve a mix of public and private...

An increasing number of startups raise capital through syndicated equity deals on platforms such as AngelList. Syndication is a useful source of entrepreneurial finance because there are many households that would like to invest in startups and relatively few with the knowledge and networks...