This study uses a confidential Census sample of 151,900 U.S. manufacturing plant-years from 1974-2011 to investigate the impact of excluding the costs of unused capacity from key financial indicators, namely product costs and gross margins. We estimate the magnitude of unused capacity cost as a...

This study defines reporting conservatism as a higher verification standard for probable gains compared to losses and builds a model that endogenously generates optimal behavior resembling an asymmetric preference for gains versus losses. Our model considers the setting where one party produces...

In certain circumstances, insider trades such as private transactions between executives and their firms could be disclosed after the end of the firm's fiscal year, on a Form-5 filing. We find that insider sales disclosed in such a delayed manner for large firms are predictive of negative future...

This paper shows that major components of modern manufacturing processes, such as inventory management and cross-training, play a significant control role. In our model, workers possess information that is critical to efficient ongoing operations. An organizational design that motivates workers...