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...

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...

We examine the role that political-economic factors play in shaping financial analyst bias using a series of scheduled provincial elections in China. Theory on political business cycles holds that, in a short period prior to these political events, provincial politicians have stronger incentives...

We examine whether managers’ activities in striving to reach earnings targets affect their firms’ product quality. We find that firms suspected of manipulating real activities in trying to meet earnings benchmarks exhibit a higher likelihood and frequency of product recalls. Other evidence...

We investigate the link between foreign competition and corporate tax planning. We find that a one standard deviation increase in import competition leads to a reduction of 9% in firms’ effective tax rates relative to standard levels. Further, we document that our evidence is robust to a...

We find that mutual funds whose managers are socially connected with firm auditors hold more shares of these firms and generate superior portfolio returns. Cross-sectional results reveal that the relation between social connections and mutual fund stockholdings is more pronounced: when the...