We survey 401 financial executives, and conduct in-depth interviews with an additional 20, to determine the key factors that drive decisions related to reported earnings and voluntary disclosure. The majority of firms view earnings, especially EPS, as the key metric for outsiders, even more so...

Diversified firms trade at a discount relative to similar single-segment firms. We argue in this paper that this observed discount is not per se evidence that diversification destroys value. Firms choose to diversify. Firm characteristics, which make firms diversify might also cause them to be...

We study fund-firm connections that arise when firm executives and directors serve as fund directors. We find that connected funds are significantly more likely to vote with management in proposals with negative ISS recommendations or low shareholder support. As our data shows that management...

Different market characteristics and investor behavior render the use of underpricing, widely used for equity IPOs, inadequate as a measure of gains from primary market allocations in corporate bonds. We propose a measure that reflects the illiquidity costs that investors save by avoiding...

The short period of time, from the fourth week of April to the end of May, referred to as the proxy season, has about 333 proposals voted a day relative to 27 proposals voted per day outside the proxy season. The compressed workload results in 17.6% fewer negative recommendations from ISS during...

This paper examines the effect of a change in WSJ’s ownership in 2007 when it was acquired by News Corp., which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. We find that WSJ’s coverage of firms with board connections to News Corp. is 36.5% more positive, relative to New York Times (NYT), after its...

We study the propensity of firms to commit financial fraud using a sample of SEC enforcement actions from 2000 to 2006. Controlling for year effects, Fama-French 48-industry effects, and several firm characteristics, we find a significant relation between fraud probability and CEO-board...

We study the relation between fraud and CEO-board connectedness. While nonprofessional connections due to shared non-business service or alma mater increase fraud probability, professional connections from employment overlaps lower the incidence of fraud. The benefits of professional...