The effectiveness of relative performance evaluation (RPE) in compensation contracts depends on a firm's ability to identify peers that are subject to similar exogenous shocks with similar abilities to respond to such shocks. We expand the RPE literature by considering whether firms routinely...

As firms evolve, the tasks required to generate firm value change, as does the ability of earnings to reflect changes in that value. To the extent earnings differentially captures managers’ effort toward desire tasks, contracting theory suggests its role in incentive pay should also change....

We examine the sensitivity of CEO compensation to pretax domestic and foreign incomes both before and after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). Our results show firms reward foreign over domestic earnings prior to the TCJA, when foreign income was tax advantaged relative to domestic...

We examine the relation between managerial incentives and disclosure. Specifically, we examine how contracts that explicitly evaluate managers relative to peer performance are associated with: (1) the transparency of mandatory disclosure; (2) the provision of voluntary disclosure; and (3) the...

We investigate how boards use discretion in contracting to incorporate private information about managerial performance. Building from the literature documenting that loss firms' publicly available valuation allowance (VA) disclosures contain value-relevant private information, we show the VA...

Academic and anecdotal evidence indicates that incentive systems often provide short-term payouts without regard for long-term consequences. New detailed disclosures mandated by FIN No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, enable us to use a tax setting to investigate whether boards...

This dissertation investigates the relation between firm disclosure, analyst forecast bias, and the cost of equity capital (COEC). Since analyst forecast bias is associated with both implied COEC estimates and disclosure, it is important to control for or remove it from COEC estimates when...

Motivated by research from the late 1990s and early 2000s, researchers often examine analyst performance as a function of individual analyst characteristics using variables representing analysts’ experience, busyness, and resources. Studies make different choices for variable construction and...

Private equity firms have discretion over the timing of their funds' capital calls and distributions, making the popular internal rate of return (IRR) an incomplete measure of private equity fund performance. Do investors avoid the textbook pitfalls of the IRR when cash flow timing is partly...