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Diversity Washing

We provide large-sample evidence on whether U.S. publicly traded corporations use voluntary disclosures about their commitments to employee diversity opportunistically. We document significant discrepancies between companies' external stances on …

Earnings News and Over-the-Counter Markets

We document significant increases in bond market liquidity around earnings announcements. These increases are attributed to decreased search and bargaining costs, which arise from the over-the-counter (OTC) nature of bond markets and outweigh …

Board Diversity and Shareholder Voting

The lack of diversity across gender and race of corporate boards has been one of the most significant issues in corporate board governance in recent years. Given the critical role that shareholders have in approving director appointments, we analyze …

Retail Bond Investors and Credit Ratings

Using comprehensive data on U.S. corporate bond trades since 2002, we find evidence that retail bond investors overrely on untimely credit ratings to their financial detriment. Specifically, they appear to select bonds by first screening on a credit …

Retail Investors and ESG News

A critical debate exists around the extent to which retail investors do, or should, invest in socially responsible investments. We provide evidence relevant to this debate by investigating the aggregate trading patterns of retail investors around a …

The Information Content of Municipal Financial Statements: Large-sample Evidence

The perceived informational value of financial disclosures is a source of considerable regulatory and academic debate in the municipal setting. In this paper, we examine the extent to which post-issuance municipal financial disclosures have …

Information Acquisition Costs and Price Informativeness: Global Evidence

We study how global changes in information acquisition costs affect price informativeness. To provide evidence on this issue, we examine worldwide adoptions of centralized electronic disclosure systems. Despite broadening the dissemination of …

Seven Myths of ESG

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations have dominated the discussion of corporate purpose in recent years. We examine commonly accepted notions about ESG that are foundational to the discussion but receive little critical analysis. …

Tick Size Tolls: Can a Trading Slowdown Improve Earnings News Discovery?

This study examines how an increase in tick size affects algorithmic trading (AT), fundamental information acquisition (FIA), and the price discovery process around earnings announcements (EAs). Leveraging the SECs randomized Tick Size Pilot …

From Implicit to Explicit: The Impact of Disclosure Requirements on Hidden Transaction Costs

This paper provides evidence that disclosing corporate bond investors' transaction costs (markups) affects the size of the markups. Until recently, markups were embedded in the reported transaction price and not explicitly disclosed. Without explicit …