On 15 December 2015, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) passed Rule 3211, requiring audit firms registered with PCAOB in the U.S. to disclose the audit engagement partner’s name in the Form AP, effective 31 January 2017. The regulation aims to improve the transparency and...

Characteristics of Islamic finance, such as a smaller set of shared information and a lower degree of cross-market hedging, reduce volatility linkages (correlations) between Islamic and conventional stocks, bonds and bills. We use a stochastic volatility model in a Generalized Methods of Moments...

We provide cross-country evidence from microfinance institutions (MFIs) that are Sharia-compliant and their comparisons with non-Sharia-compliant MFIs. We find that, compared with non-Sharia-compliant conventional MFIs, Sharia-compliant Islamic MFIs have less credit risk but are less profitable...

This paper examines whether asymmetric benchmarking of pay exists for vice presidents (VPs). Using ExecuComp data for 1992–2007, we find that companies reward VPs for good luck but do not penalize them for bad luck. However, asymmetric benchmarking of VP pay is mitigated by governance, CEO...

We model the reorganization decision of distressed firms. One of the novel features of our paper is that we examine the asset and liability side restructuring decisions jointly to resolve financial distress. Secondly, we model several institutional features of coping with financial distress such...

An underlying assumption in the executive compensation literature is that there is a national labor market for CEOs. The urban economics literature, however, documents higher ability among workers in large metropolitans, which results in a real and stable urban wage premium. In this paper, we...

Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) financing is a unique form of enhanced secured financing that is granted to firms filing for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. Opponents of DIP financing argue that such financing can lead to overinvestment, i.e., excessive investment in risky,...

CEOs and top management team members have incentives to influence their own pay. Asymmetric benchmarking of pay for CEOs has been linked to the CEO's control over the pay-setting process in previous research. This paper examines whether asymmetric benchmarking of pay exists for top management...

Using a simple cheap-talk game, we theoretically demonstrate that corporate social responsibility (CSR) helps mitigate the CEO-board information asymmetry, leading to more informed advising and monitoring by the board. By optimally engaging in CSR, the board can take advantage of stakeholder...