When multiple projects can require attention at unpredictable times, institutions (firms) can respond by choosing the number of projects they simultaneously undertake (medium term) and by acquiring attention capacity (long term). Idleness is an optimal response and not a sign of shirking. In the...

A number of prominent papers in the literature have estimated the average speed of adjustment (SOA) of firms' leverage ratios with estimators not designed for applications in which the dependent variable is a ratio. These statistics indicate mean reversion, which the papers mistakenly...

It has been shown, for non-Communist developed and developing countries, that earlier development of agriculture, a dense population, and a state-level polity is associated with a higher income and more rapid economic growth in the late 20th Century. We investigate whether this was also the case...

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>We study the economic consequences of a recent Securities and Exchange Commission securities regulation change that grants foreign firms trading on the U.S. over-the-counter (OTC) market an automatic exemption from the reporting requirements of the 1934 Securities Act. We...</p>

This paper exploits a natural quasi-experiment to isolate the effects that were uniquely due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX): U.S. firms with a public float under $75 million could delay Section 404 compliance, and foreign firms under $700 million could delay the auditor's attestation...