This study documents the performance and career outcomes of sell-side analysts with prior accounting education or experience. Analysts with accounting work experience—especially former auditors—issue more accurate earnings forecasts and more profitable sell recommendations. In contrast, analysts with only accounting education or CPA credentials do not outperform. Former auditors also ask more accounting-focused questions during earnings calls, and the firms they cover exhibit higher earnings quality and more conservative reporting, consistent with improved monitoring. In terms of labor market outcomes, these analysts have longer tenures, are marginally more likely to attain all-star recognition, and are more often assigned to firms with complex financial reporting and greater analyst competition, suggesting strategic deployment. Overall, our findings highlight the value—but also the limits—of accounting expertise in sell-side research, particularly as it relates to information processing, capital market intermediation, and professional advancement.

We show that productivity at both the firm and employee (i.e., analyst and inventor) level temporarily declines upon announcements of takeover rumors that do not materialize. Such speculative news may hurt productivity because uncertainty and the threat of job loss cause anxiety, distraction, and reduced commitment among employees and managers. Consistently, we observe a more pronounced productivity dip for rumored targets and when the likelihood of job loss is higher. Firm performance mirrors these results. We find no indication of reverse causality. The evidence fosters our understanding of potential real effects of speculative financial news and the costs of takeover threats.

Companies occasionally are unable to finalize publicly announced M&A bids—a phenomenon referred to as unconsummated deals. Despite their commonality, the implications of unconsummated deals for bidding firms are not well understood. We thus theorize about and empirically investigate the relationship between unconsummated deals and subsequent M&A behavior. In doing so, we present multiple reasons for what we term the “once bitten, twice shy effect,” whereby firms act more cautiously in the M&A context following unconsummated deals. In a sample of M&As across North American and European firms, we find empirical support consistent with our theorizing suggesting the cautiousness following unconsummated deals is associated with smaller target firm size, a greater likelihood of advisor usage, a greater likelihood of toehold acquisitions, and a longer time-period between acquisition bids.

We show that investors acquire more public information about firms to which they are more socially proximate. A standard deviation increase in the Social Connectedness Index (Bailey, Cao, Kuchler, Stroebel, and Wong, 2018) between a firm’s headquarter county and a searcher county is associated with 30% more EDGAR filing downloads from the searcher county. The effect of social proximity on traditional investment research is distinct from the effects of geographic proximity and capital allocation. We find similar results studying headquarter relocations, investor-level data, power outages, and EDGAR downloads from European regions, for which physical distance should be irrelevant. Social proximity matters more during times of high market-wide uncertainty and for firms with weaker information environments. Traditional information gathered by socially proximate investors predicts short-term earnings and stock returns. Collectively, the evidence indicates that social ties mitigate informational frictions and foster valuable traditional information acquisition in financial markets.

Speculative news on corporate takeovers may hurt productivity because uncertainty and threat of job loss cause anxiety, distraction, and reduced collaboration and morale among employees and managers. Using a panel of OECD-headquartered firms, we show that firm productivity temporarily declines upon announcements of speculative takeover rumors that do not materialize. This productivity dip is more pronounced for targets and for firms in countries with weaker employee rights and less long-term orientation. Abnormal stock returns mirror these results. The evidence fosters our understanding of potential real effects of speculative financial news and the costs of takeover threats.

We provide evidence on the evolution of generalized trust among finance professionals using data from the General Social Survey over the period 1978–2016. Accounting for demographic, regional, and socioeconomic characteristics, we document a significant decline in the level of trust among finance professionals relative to the decline of trust in the U.S. population. This decline is unique to the finance industry and is particularly strong in the early years of the sample when finance professionals initially exhibited a higher level of trust than the average American. The decline occurs across all subsectors in finance and at all hierarchy levels.

Using annual survey-based investor relations (IR) data for a panel of European companies, we document that the supply and effectiveness of IR varies with country- and firm-level demand. Relative to their industry peers, firms from insider-oriented countries have larger IR staff, which predicts better IR rankings. Better IR is associated with greater visibility, information assimilation, and valuation, with visibility and assimilation being significantly greater for firms from insider-oriented countries. Within such countries, firms with greater outsider orientation have higher capital market benefits. Furthermore, using Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II as a shock to analyst coverage, we find an incrementally larger association between IR and visibility in insider-oriented countries after 2017. Overall, the evidence suggests that the supply of IR in insider-oriented markets has reached a high level, acting as a viable mechanism to improve firms’ information environment. However, within those countries, IR demand still varies significantly, with outsider-oriented firms showing greater IR effectiveness. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4368 .

We present a model that helps explain why only few blockholders seek board representation despite little direct costs. In the model, inefficiently few blockholders take a board seat because it signals adverse information to outside investors, lowering trading profits. However, once taken, board seats commit blockholders to stay invested and monitor management. In light of our results, negative stock returns to appointments of blockholder-directors need not reflect rent extraction but are in line with blockholders improving performance. We present evidence consistent with our model's predictions using German data, which mitigates endogeneity concerns and provides considerable variation in blockholders.

We show that in countries with more societal trust shareholders cast fewer votes at shareholder meetings and are more supportive of management proposals. This result is confirmed by instrumental variable regressions. It also holds at the U.S.-county level and for voting by U.S. institutional investors. Lower monitoring via voting relates less negatively to future firm performance in high-trust countries, suggesting that managers do not exploit greater discretion when trust is high. We also find a negative relation between trust and bond spreads. Our evidence supports theory arguing that trust substitutes for monitoring and has implications for investors’ optimal monitoring effort.

We exploit the staggered introduction of index funds in different segments and countries to study how increased competition from indexing affects the performance-flow relation and incentives of actively managed equity mutual funds. An increase in the market shares of available country-level index funds in active fund benchmarks is associated with a significantly lower sensitivity of flows to past performance and with a shift from a convex performance-flow relation towards a more linear relation. The increased competition from index funds is also associated with a higher fund performance-liquidation sensitivity, suggesting real economic consequences for active fund managers and fund management companies.

This study documents economically meaningful and persistent financial advisor fixed effects in target firms’ abnormal stock returns shortly prior to takeover announcements. Additional difference-in-differences analyses suggest that advisors are associated with lower pre-bid stock returns after their senior staff were defendants in SEC insider trading enforcement actions. Returns are higher for advisors with more previously advised deals and those located in NYC. The evidence helps explain the prevalent phenomenon of pre-bid stock returns. It contributes to the inconclusive literature on banks’ exploitation of private information gained via advisory services, which is limited to disclosed, traceable activities indicative of information leakage. This table shows the results of a linear regression of runups on the sum of target and acquiror CAR (columns 1 and 3) and the weighted sum of target and acquiror CAR (columns 2 and 4). The weighted sum is calculated using the relative market capitalization of the target and the acquiror as weights. The table reports point estimates and standard errors clustered by acquiror and year in parentheses. statistical Variable definitions are provided in Table A1.

We document a significant decline in the level of generalized trust among finance professionals relative to the decline of trust in the general U.S. population, which is unique to the finance industry. The decline in finance professionals' trust in others occurs across all subsectors in finance and at all hierarchy levels. It is related to a lack of confidence only in institutions that are relevant to the finance industry. The decline in trust is associated with a decreasing level of socialization among finance professionals as well as with changes in economic conditions and the professional environment in the finance industry.

We document a long-lasting association between a common societal phenomenon, early-life family disruption, and investment behavior. Controlling for socioeconomic status and family background, we find fund managers who experienced the death or divorce of their parents during childhood exhibit a stronger disposition effect, take lower risk, and are more likely to sell their holdings following risk-increasing firm events. The results are consistent with persistent symptoms of post-traumatic stress and strengthen as treatment intensifies. The evidence adds to our understanding of the role of social factors and “nurture” in finance as well as the origin of investment biases.

Our study is the first to provide systematic evidence of a hump-shaped CEO tenure-firm value relation. Cross-sectionally, firm value starts to decline after fewer years of CEO tenure in more dynamic industries, if CEOs are less adaptable to changes, and in the presence of greater labor market frictions. Overall, the dynamics of CEO-firm match quality appear to be a first-order driver of the CEO tenure-firm value association, as explained by CEO characteristics (adaptability), firm/industry characteristics (dynamism), and labor market characteristics that facilitate optimal matching between firms and CEOs.

M&A rumors cause anxiety, distraction, and reduced employee morale due to the implicit threat of job loss. Using an international sample of M&A rumors that do not materialize, we show that firm productivity temporarily declines after rumors surface. This productivity dip is more pronounced for target firms and for firms in countries with less employment protection, collective bargaining, and long-term orientation. Stock returns mirror these results, suggesting that rumors destroy shareholder value. The evidence fosters our understanding of the implications of a common phenomenon in financial markets, i.e., rumors, and the dark side of the market for corporate control.

This study provides evidence that investors' demographic similarity to CEOs facilitates informed trading after accounting for selective distribution of information. Mutual fund managers overweight firms whose CEOs resemble them in terms of age, ethnicity, and gender. Significantly higher trade performance in the sub-portfolio of similar CEOs indicates that this overweighting reflects informational advantage. Consistently, for similar CEOs, fund managers are better able to identify valuable CEO-firm matches and firms with positive future earnings. The evidence supports theories of screening discrimination according to which in-group bias is a rational response to asymmetric information and has implications for fund manager diversity.

Exploiting the 2009 amendments to Regulation S-K, we provide unique evidence on the firsttime disclosure of the reasons firms state for combining or separating the roles of CEO and chairman. The stated reasons support both agency theory and organization theory. They are more numerous, comprise more words, and have a more positive tone for firms with duality. Examining the announcement returns to firms' disclosures, we find that investors evaluate the most frequently cited reasons for CEO duality by considering firm's characteristics. Our evidence enhances the understanding of firms' endogenous decision to opt for CEO duality and its value consequences.