This paper examines the relationship between managerial stock option holdings and the decision to announce a repurchase of the firm's common stock. Managerial stock option holdings should reinforce the traditional undervaluation, free cash flow, and capital structure motives for repurchases by...

This paper examines the role of stock option programs and executive holdings of stock options in REIT governance. We study this issue by analyzing how the market reaction to a stock repurchase announcement varies as a function of the individual REIT's governance structure. In particular, we...

In this paper, we examine the relationship between managerial stock option holdings and the decision to announce a repurchase of the firm's common stock. Managerial stock option holdings should reinforce the traditional undervaluation, free cash flow and capital structure motives for...

This dissertation consists of three essays covering corporate governance, agency costs and asset pricing. The recent spate of corporate governance scandals has led to the emergence of several commercial governance rating agencies which rate firms on their strength of governance mechanisms. In...

This paper investigates the relationship between the employee-friendly practices of the acquiring firm and the acquisition performance. I find a positive relationship between employee friendliness of the acquirer and acquisition performance. Employee friendliness of the acquirer is also...

We analyze the dual role of investment banks that provide advice to acquiring firms and act as underwriters on the securities issued to finance the acquisition. We find that a significant fraction (56 percent) of acquirers that issue public securities to finance their acquisitions also use their...

We examine whether financial analysts understand the effect of unionization on firm earnings in the U.S. by examining a large panel dataset with firm-level unionization, adoptions of right-to-work (RTW) laws, and union certification elections. We find that forecast errors for unionized firms in...

This paper investigates the impact of a firm's annual report readability and ambiguous tone on its borrowing costs. We find that firms with larger 10-K file sizes and a higher proportion of uncertain and weak modal words in 10-Ks have stricter loan contract terms and greater future stock price...

We examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is used to signal product quality and whether CSR affects firm value through its positive effect on product market perception. Using a proprietary database, we find that visible CSR, such as environmental and community involvement,...