We find that firms with a corporate general counsel in top management (TMC) are less likely to pay dividends, and for such firms that do pay dividends, the dividend payouts are lower. Our results hold addressing both endogeneity concerns and selection biases. We also find that the presence of a...

We find that informed trading in the option market prior to dividend initiation is negatively related to announcement period price reactions. This relation is more prevalent among firms with abnormal trading in call options, higher stock price runup, and higher option liquidity. We also find...

We find that the informed trading measures “abnormal O/S ratio”, “abnormal option volume” and “abnormal implied volatility skew” are negatively related to event period abnormal returns for accelerated share repurchases (ASRs) announcements. This effect is stronger for call options...

We examine the operating performance subsequent to dividend initiations by comparing firms with similar pre-event operating performance and growth opportunities. We find strong (weak) evidence of information content for dividends initiated by firms subsequent (prior) to the 2003 tax cut in the...

Motivated by the increasing growth in both non-quantitative corporate disclosure and seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) in the US, we take a fresh look at the accelerated offering decision in SEOs, with a specific focus on readability of annual reports in 10-K filings. Using a sample of 2,520...

Motivated by the increasing growth in both non-quantitative corporate disclosure and seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) in the US, we take a fresh look at the accelerated offering decision in SEOs, with a specific focus on readability of annual reports in 10-K filings. In particular, we examine...