In this paper, I examine the impact of ambiguity (Knightian uncertainty), alongside that of risk, on firms’ voluntary disclosure decisions. I confirm the well-known result that an increase in risk— uncertainty over outcomes—is associated with an increase in management guidance (earnings...

Studies suggest that, pursuant to the implementation of SFAS 133, even sophisticated users of financial statements find it difficult to comprehend earnings implications of hedging derivatives. Moreover, due to stringent hedge accounting requirements under these standards, many economic hedges do...

Extant theories suggest that managers may use hedging either to alleviate underinvestment problems caused by costly external financing or to promote overinvestment by circumventing the scrutiny of external capital markets. We empirically investigate this issue using a hand-collected dataset of...

A growing body of literature finds that firm-level carbon emissions are associated with a number of adverse outcomes such as higher firm risk, lower firm value, higher option premiums to cover downside tail risk, and declines in future profitability. Given these adverse effects, this paper...

Labor unemployment insurance reduces unemployment concerns. We argue that these benefitsmoderate incentives to smooth earnings to reduce employees' concerns about unemployment risk.Using exogenous variations in unemployment insurance benefits, we find evidence consistent withthis argument. We...

This paper studies the effect of stock liquidity on blockholders' choice of governance mechanisms. We focus on hedge funds as they are unconstrained by legal restrictions and business ties, and thus have all governance channels at their disposal. Since the threat of governance, not just actual...

Using a sample of 2,241 shareholder lawsuits from 1996 through 2008, we identify 579 lawsuit firms (26%) with publicly traded bonds. We find a mean [median] excess bond return of -2.59% [-1.83%], and a significant increase in trading volume for these bonds around the class action filing date....

Using a sample of 2,241 shareholder lawsuits from 1996 through 2008, we identify 579 lawsuit firms (26%) with publicly traded bonds. We find a mean [median] excess bond return of -2.59% [-1.83%], and a significant increase in trading volume for these bonds around the class action filing date....