We examine whether chief financial officers (CFOs) with accounting backgrounds (accountant CFOs) are associated with more conservative corporate outcomes. We find that, in high-growth industries, firms with accountant CFOs invest less in research and development and capital expenditures and are...

We investigate the effect of CFO narcissism, as measured by signature size, on financial reporting quality. Experimentally, we validate that narcissism predicts misreporting behavior, and that signature size predicts misreporting through its association with narcissism. Empirically, we examine...

We present evidence that, while individuals with accounting expertise bring key skills to financial reporting responsibilities of the CFO position, they tend to lack educational and career experiences relevant to non-accounting responsibilities (e.g., operations and strategy). Assuming boards'...

This study investigates whether and how equity investors value the accounting expertise of chief financial officers (CFOs) in managing cash assets. Using hand-collected CFO data of S&P 1500 firms from 1999 to 2015, we find that the stock market places a higher value on cash assets when firms...

In this study, I summarize the current state of executive compensation, discuss measurement and incentive issues, document recent trends in executive pay in both U.S. and international firms, and analyze the evolution of executive pay over the past century. Most recent analyses of executive...

We find that firms led by Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) who are relatively more concerned about their future job prospects are less likely to take actions that result in poor discretionary quality reporting during an Initial Public Offering (IPO). In addition, our results show that CFOs with...