Practitioners have long criticized risk-factor disclosures in the 10-K as generic and boilerplate. In response, regulators emphasize the importance of being specific. By using a computing algorithm, this paper establishes a new measure (Specificity) to quantify the level of specificity of firms'...

This study examines how short-selling threats affect auditors. During 2005-2007, the SEC ordered a pilot program in which one-third of the Russell 3000 index firms were arbitrarily chosen to be exempted from short-sale price tests. As a result, these stocks faced significantly higher...

Practitioners have long criticized risk-factor disclosures in the 10-K as generic and boilerplate. In response, regulators emphasize the importance of being specific. By using a computing algorithm, this paper establishes a new measure (Specificity) to quantify the level of specificity of firms'...

Based on a unique arrangement of trading and disclosure times around earnings announcements in the Chinese stock market, we provide evidence of a striking overnight-intraday disparity in terms of the reaction to earnings news. Specifically, we find that the overnight period exhibits a strong and...

We provide initial evidence that stock exchange procedures around closing auctions advantage speed traders at the expense of auction participants. We show that 4:00 pm earnings releases result in informed trading in the continuous regular-hour session in the short window between 4:00 pm and the...

This study examines whether voluntary issuance of stand-alone CSR reports affects the informativeness of earnings information. We find that the first-time voluntary adoption of CSR reporting is associated with higher subsequent earnings response coefficients, suggesting that CSR reporting...

This study provides evidence on the role of public firms’ financial reports in the state-bond secondary market. I investigate the informational role of corporate earnings announcements and find that public firms’ monthly earnings signals aggregated to the state level are positively...

A small minority of highly successful firms (referred to as superstar firms) have captured large market shares and earned massive profits in recent decades. Although various macroeconomic developments, such as an increase in industry concentration, have been attributed to the rise of superstar...

The staggered passage of state medical marijuana laws increases state bonds' offering and trading spreads by 7-11 basis points. Consistent with medical marijuana laws causing an increase in states' credit risk, states incur higher safety and public welfare expenditures and experience greater...

We study the relation between disclosure and competition for capital, using Moody's 2010 recalibration of the municipal rating scale. On a relative basis, the recalibration advantaged highly upgraded issuers and disadvantaged lowly upgraded issuers. We develop a model to show that for...