This paper presents a model in which the CEO generates productive output while the CFO oversees a reporting system that provides information useful for monitoring, decision-making, and contracting, but is also subject to costly manipulation. Because the reporting system serves multiple roles,...

CFOs wear many hats, as the primary agents responsible for financial reporting and control and as strategic partners within firms' top management teams. This paper uses an agency model to investigate how the role and responsibilities of the CFO affect reporting quality, firm value, and incentive...

Building on archival, anecdotal, and survey evidence on managers' roles in accounting manipulations, I develop an agency model to examine the effects of a CEO's power to pressure a CFO to bias a performance measure, like earnings. This power has implications for incentive compensation, reporting...