We examine whether corporate bankruptcies influence bank loan characteristics of geographically proximate firms. Controlling for industry contagion and local economic conditions, firms headquartered near a bankruptcy event experience a seven basis point increase in loan spreads. The effect is...

We analyze the efficiency of indexing executive pay by calibrating the standard model of executive compensation to a large sample of US CEOs. The main finding is that benefits from indexing stock options are small and that fully indexing them would increase compensation costs by more than 50%...

Top management team diversity matters for stock returns. We develop a new text–based measure of team diversity and apply it to a sample of over 40,000 top executives in U.S. firms from 2001 to 2014. Buying firms with diverse teams and selling firms with homogenous teams — a strategy we call...

This note is intended for researchers who want to implement the Dittmann and Maug (2007) calibration method. This method allows to test a complete principal-agent model with individual-level data on executive pay. The method consists of two steps. First, the principal-agent model is simplified...

In this experimental study we examine the impact of self-fulfilling prophecies on financial ratings. According to theoretical models like Kuhner (2001), rating agencies are more likely to reveal their private information if their rating can not become self-fulfilling from an ex-post point of...