Are regulatory interventions delayed reactions to market failures or can regulators proactively pre-empt corporate misbehavior? From a public interest view, we would expect “effective” regulation to ex ante mitigate agency conflicts between...Read more
This article investigates the development of accountability and fiduciary loyalty as an institutional response to information asymmetries in agency relations, especially in firm-like settings. Lord Eldon articulated the crucial role of...Read more
In the debate over contractual freedom or enabling-versus-mandatory rules in fiduciary law, those who do not adhere to an unbridled contractatian approach tend to justify fiduciary law’s strict posture by appealing to transaction cost reasoning....Read more
This paper discusses the empirical literature on the economic consequences of disclosure and financial reporting regulation, drawing on U.S. and international evidence. Given the policy relevance of research on regulation, we highlight the...Read more
The paper examines whether international regulatory harmonization increases cross-border labor migration. To study this question, we analyze European Union (EU) initiatives that harmonized accounting and auditing standards. Regulatory...Read more
Standard setting for accountants and auditors takes places in international bodies, organised within the framework of the International Federation of Accountants. These are the International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) and the ethical standards...Read more
We study shock-based methods for credible causal inference in corporate finance research. We focus on corporate governance research, survey 13,461 papers published between 2001 and 2011 in 22 major accounting, economics, finance, law, and...Read more
On July 1, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed an excess-pay clawback rule to implement the provisions of Section 954 of the Dodd-Frank Act. I explain why the SEC?s proposed Dodd-Frank clawback, while reducing executives?...Read more
The introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has been debated in the United States since at least the accounting scandals of the early 2000s. While publicly traded firms around the world are increasingly switching to...Read more
We examine changes in firms? dividend payouts following an exogenous shock to the
information asymmetry problem between managers and investors. Agency theories
predict a decrease in dividend payments to the extent that improved public...Read more
To address the question as to whether managers manipulate accounting numbers
downwards prior to management buyouts (MBOs), we implement an industry-adjusted
buyout-specific approach and receive an affirmative answer. In UK buyout...Read more
In recent years, reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) became mandatory in many countries. The capital-market effects around this change have been extensively studied, but their sources are not yet well understood....Read more