We provide evidence that some profitable insider stock selling is motivated by public information. At firms that disclose having concentrated sales relationships, insiders appear to sell their own stock profitably based on public information about their principal customers. Supplier insiders...

We show that firms with CEOs who personally benefitted from options backdating were more likely to engage in other forms of corporate misbehavior, suggestive of an unethical corporate culture. These firms were more likely to overstate firm profitability and to engage in less profitable...

We examine how Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation increased at a subset of firms in response to a governance shock that affected compensation levels at other firms in the economy. We first show that Delaware-incorporated firms with staggered boards and no outside blockholders increased...

I identify three option exercise strategies executives engage in, including (i) exercising with cash and immediately selling the shares, (ii) exercising with cash and holding the shares, and (iii) delivering some shares to the company to cover the exercise costs and holding the remaining shares....

This paper considers executive stock option exercise timing in light of the potential for backdating of exercise dates. I find that 29 (16) percent of executive option exercises were not associated with same-day disposition of shares before (after) the August 29, 2002, enactment of more...

We show that public companies frequently changed their board structures before implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, with two-thirds of firms changing board size or independence during an average two-year period. Board changes were associated with changes in firm-specific fundamentals, but...