We explore the trade-off between managerial risk-taking incentives and firm-level credit risk. Assuming that risk-taking incentives do not increase firm value, risk-taking incentives can lead to an asset substitution problem that hurts creditors. However, it is possible that risk-taking...

This study examines whether corporate tax planning and financial reporting of income taxes vary systematically with CEO tenure. Using a CEO-firm fixed effects design, we find that the GAAP effective tax rate (ETR) is higher in the early years of the CEOs' tenure and lowest in the last year of...

We examine capital market responses to CEO communication versus other executives in the Q&A sections of earnings calls. While CEO tone is more optimistic than other executives, we find significantly stronger market responses to CEO tone than to non-CEO tone or CFO tone. This result is more...

We examine whether individual-level taxes affect executives’ propensity to use nonpublic information in insider trades. We predict and find a positive relation between abnormal insider trading profitability and income tax rates. Using plausibly exogenous variation in state income tax rates, we...