We investigate the relationship between boardroom gender diversity and firm risk. To identify a causal effect of gender on risk, we use a dynamic model that controls for reverse causality and for gender and risk being influenced by unobservable firm factors. We find no evidence that female...

This study seeks to understand how executive director heterogeneity affects the performance of US banks. To measure the expected performance effects linked to director heterogeneity, we compute changes in the market valuation of banks linked to announcements of executive director appointments....

We analyze how the structure of executive compensation affects the risk choices made by bank CEOs. For a sample of acquiring US banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to show that CEOs with higher pay-risk sensitivity engage in risk-inducing mergers. Our findings are driven by two...

We explore if sleep deprivation affects how investors react to relevant news. Using the transition to Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the spring as a disruption to sleeping patterns, we show that investors underreact to a firm’s earnings surprise in the days after the transition to DST. Further,...

We investigate the link between the incentive mechanisms embedded in CEO cash bonuses and the riskiness of banks. For a sample of U.S. and European banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to show that increases in CEO cash bonuses lower the default risk of a bank. However, we find...

We exploit variation in the cultural heritage across U.S. CEOs who are the children or grandchildren of immigrants to demonstrate that the cultural origins of CEOs matter for corporate outcomes. Following shocks to industry competition, firms led by CEOs who are second- or third-generation...

We find that when more independent directors rank a directorship high, the firm-specific information content in a firm's stock price increases. Further, independent directors with high reputation incentives serve firms that voluntarily disclose more information and display lower crash risk. We...

We use the staggered adoption of same-sex marriage legalization across the U.S. to study its effects on access to credit for same-sex couples. Following the legalization of same-sex marriage, same-sex couples are more likely to be denied mortgage credit compared to opposite-sex couples. Our data...