This paper considers the effects of the 1993 legislation limiting the deductibility of non-performance-based executive compensation for corporate income tax purposes. We begin by describing the specific provisions of the legislation, and we discuss its possible effects on overall compensation...

We construct preferences towards risk and uncertainty as reflected in the cultural heritage of CEOs managing public firms in the U.S. We demonstrate that auditors take into account cultural traits of CEOs in the pricing of their audit services. We also show CEO cultural heritage is associated...

We use the unique nature of the director and officer liability protection law applicable to Nevada-incorporated firms to study how liability protection is related to corporate tax avoidance. We find that firms incorporated in Nevada avoid 32 percent more federal corporate tax as a fraction of...

We propose a framework that advances our understanding of CEO retention decisions in misreporting firms. Consistent with economic intuition, outside directors are more likely to fire (retain) CEOs when retention (replacement) costs are high relative to replacement (retention) costs. When the...

We show that large public companies in the United States change the assumptions of the benefit formulas of the defined benefits pension plans for their top executives in anticipation of plan freezes and executive retirements. In particular, on average top executives receive a boost in annual...

We examine whether CEO extraversion, an important personality trait associated with leadership, affects firms' expected cost of equity capital. We measure CEO extraversion using CEOs' speech patterns during the unscripted portion of conference calls. After controlling for several CEO and firm...

We provide evidence that outside directors’ trading and ratification decisions are incrementally useful in assessing their independence. Because crises test the independence of boards, we first investigate the CEO replacement decision in firms caught intentionally misreporting earnings. We...

This paper investigates the impact of managerial compensation on the likelihood of covenant violations and reports that higher CEO risk-shifting incentives significantly increase the likelihood of covenant violations. Evidence suggests that CEOs with creditor unfriendly compensation in leveraged...