We examine the economic benefits of paying dividends. We find that dividend payments mitigate stock price crash risk. In addition, we show that dividend payments reduce bad news hoarding (overinvestment) while bad news hoarding (overinvestment) is positively associated with stock price crash...

Prior research documents that information transmitted via director networks affects firms' policies and real economic activities. We explore whether information flow through director networks influences managers' ability to hoard bad news. We find that the extent of external connections of the...

We examine whether the equity incentive heterogeneity of the executive team engenders a positive externality by curtailing stock price crash risk. Supporting this prediction, we find a negative relation between the equity incentive heterogeneity of the executive team and stock price crash risk....

Prior research documents that information transmitted via director networks affects firms’ policies and real economic activities. Given a manager’s potential monopoly over firm information, it is important to analyze whether information transmission through director social networks...

Using a large sample of U.S. public firms, we find robust evidence that short interest is positively related to one-year ahead stock price crash risk. The evidence is consistent with the view that short sellers are able to detect bad news hoarding by managers. Additional findings show that the...

This study examines whether religiosity at the county level is associated with future stock price crash risk. We find robust evidence that firms headquartered in counties with higher levels of religiosity exhibit lower levels of future stock price crash risk. This finding is consistent with the...

This study tests two opposing views of institutional investors — monitoring versus short-termism. We present evidence that institutional investor stability is negatively associated with one-year-ahead stock price crash risk, consistent with the monitoring theory of institutional investors but...