In this study we analyze the effect of information asymmetry on corporate cash holdings. Using various measures of information asymmetry, we show that companies that operate in higher information asymmetry environments have smaller cash holdings. We continue to find a negative relation between...

Prior research shows that religion promotes honesty. Honesty in turn motivates managers to view an expropriation from shareholders as self-serving, opportunistic, and unethical, thereby alleviating the agency conflict. Religious piety is thus expected to discourage agency-driven acquisitions...

This paper investigates whether board diversity has a significant impact on corporate payout decisions. Previous studies exclusively focus on examining the relation between a measure of firm performance and board diversity. The major advantage of our study is to investigate the direct impact of...

Using a sample of 129 mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the U.S. between publicly traded acquirers and targets in research and development (R&D) intensive industries over the period of 1994-2004 and a size- and industry-matched sample, we examine the relation among targets' R&D activities, the...

We examine whether they engage in income-increasing accruals manipulation (AM) or real activities earnings management (RM) to affect the future rating changes when firm managers have private information about the upcoming credit rating change. Using the large sample of U.S. data over the period...

Using firm-level union membership data for the period of 2002–2016, we show that firms with higher union membership are more likely to engage in real earnings management than accrual-based earnings management, with abnormal production as the dominant form of real earnings management. We...

Many prosecutors, judges and journalists have claimed that watching television shows like CSI have caused jurors to wrongfully acquit guilty defendants when no scientific evidence is presented. This is the first empirical study designed to investigate whether the CSI effect exists. This survey...

This paper examines the effect of risk management incentives resulting from managerial bonus plans on firms' derivatives usage. Partitioning the sample into firms whose managers are more likely to face convexity or concavity in the bonus payoff function, we find a negative relation between bonus...

This paper investigates operational hedging by firms and how operational hedging is related to financial hedging by using a sample of 424 firm observations, which consist of 212 operationally-hedged firms (firms with foreign sales) and a size and industry matched sample of 212...

This paper examines the impact of multiple directorships on stockholder wealth around the announcements of mergers and acquisitions. Grounded in agency theory, we argue that multiple directorships affect the quality of managerial oversight and thus influence agency conflicts in acquisition...