Evidence from a data set of federal district judges from 2001 and 2002 suggests that district judges adjust their opinion-writing practices to minimize their workload while maximizing their reputation and chance for elevation to a higher court. District judges in circuits with politically...

Lifetime tenure maximizes judicial independence by shielding judges from political pressures but creates problems of its own. Judges with independence may implement their political preferences. Judges may remain in office after their abilities degrade with age. The U.S. federal system addresses...

We study the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) enforcement decisions in the context of the highly salient back-dating scandal. We find that (1) the SEC shifted its mix of investigations significantly toward backdating and away from other accounting issues; (2) event studies of stock...

This article tests for the presence of bias in judicial citations within federal circuit court opinions. Our findings suggest bias along three dimensions. First, judges base outside-circuit citation decisions in part on the political party of the cited judge. Judges tend to cite judges of the...

This article assesses the impact of the 1992 SEC reforms that enhanced the ability of shareholders to communicate during a proxy contest. Utilizing a sample of 361 share-holder-sponsored corporate governance issue proposals from 1991 to 1995, the article finds that the mean percentage of total...

The present securities regulatory regime in the United States focuses on the protection investors. Investor protection, in turn, leads to a robust capital market. The federal government accomplishes its goal of investor protection through the registration and direct regulatory control of...

Examining a sample of 701 offshore securities offerings under Regulation S of the Securities Act from 1993 to 1997, the article tests whether foreign investors expect to resell Regulation S securities into the United States ahead of the U.S. secondary market reaction to news of the offering. The...

This paper considers the efficiency implications of managerial "favoritism" towards block shareholders of public corporations. While favoritism can take any number of forms (including the payment of greenmail, diversion of opportunities, selective information disclosure, and the like), each may...

This article provides the first empirical analysis of punitive damages in securities arbitrations. Using a data set of over 6,800 securities arbitration awards, we find that claimants prevailed in 48.9 percent of arbitrations and that 9.1 percent of those claimant victories included a punitive...