This study uses a confidential Census sample of 151,900 U.S. manufacturing plant-years from 1974-2011 to investigate the impact of excluding the costs of unused capacity from key financial indicators, namely product costs and gross margins. We estimate the magnitude of unused capacity cost as a...

This study defines reporting conservatism as a higher verification standard for probable gains compared to losses and builds a model that endogenously generates optimal behavior resembling an asymmetric preference for gains versus losses. Our model considers the setting where one party produces...

This paper shows that major components of modern manufacturing processes, such as inventory management and cross-training, play a significant control role. In our model, workers possess information that is critical to efficient ongoing operations. An organizational design that motivates workers...

Investor uncertainty about firm value drives investors' information collection and trading activities, as well as managers' disclosure choices. This study examines an important source of uncertainty that likely cannot be influenced by most managers and investors: uncertainty about government...

We provide one of the first empirical evidence consistent with recent macro global-game crisis models, which show that the precision of public signals can coordinate crises (e.g., Angeletos and Werning 2006; Morris and Shin 2002, 2003). In these models, self-fulfilling crises (independent of poor...

Recent research shows that weather events impact firms' operational and financial performance, raising the question of whether investors can diversify weather risk. We show that firms' exposure to weather is a systematic non-diversifiable risk, and that this risk is economically significant. We...

Prior research finds that intraday stock prices move considerably during the discussion period of earnings conference calls. In this study, we explore what features of the manager-analyst dialogue during the discussion drive these price movements. We textually analyze the tone of managers and...