Publication

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 …

Retail Investors and ESG News

An important debate exists around the extent to which retail investors make sustainable investments and, if they do, why. We contribute to this debate by investigating the aggregate trading patterns of retail investors around a comprehensive sample …

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 …

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 …