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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 …

Diversity Washing

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

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

The usefulness of financial disclosures is a source of considerable debate in the municipal setting, given their lack of timeliness. This paper empirically examines the extent to which municipal financial disclosures have information content. Using …

Board Diversity and Shareholder Voting

The lack of board diversity across gender and race has been one of the most controversial topics in corporate board governance in recent years. Given the central role that shareholders have in approving director appointments, we investigate whether …

Disclosure Processing Costs and Market Feedback Around the World

We study how changes in disclosure processing costs affect managers’ ability to learn from their own firms’ stock prices. To provide evidence on this issue, we examine country-level adoptions of centralized electronic disclosure systems (CEDS). These …

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 …

Where's the Greenium?

In this study, we investigate whether investors are willing to trade off wealth for societal benefits. We take advantage of unique institutional features of the municipal securities market to provide insight into this question. Since 2013, states and …