We examine how the mandatory adoption of extended auditor's reports (EARs) affects managerial bad-news hoarding through the lens of stock price crash risk. Relying on the UK's auditing standard change in 2013 as a quasi-natural experiment, we document a crash risk reduction for firms that were required to adopt EARs, relative to firms that were not so required. The crash risk reduction is related to EARs' disclosure of risks of material misstatement in revenue recognition. The negative effect of EARs adoption on crash risk is more pronounced for firms with scant public information and firms with non-Big-4 or non-industry-specialist auditors. EARs adoption induces firms to disclose more smaller pieces of negative information without changing firms' accruals management. Taken together, our results suggest that EARs adoption dampens bad-news hoarding by managers.

Employing an international sample of bank loans from 37 countries, we find that both borrowers' intensive media coverage and positive media sentiment reduce the interest rate spreads on bank loans. In syndicated lending, positive media sentiment increases the likelihood of a non-relationship bank leading or participating in a loan syndicate and decreases the loan share of the lead arranger. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the negative impact of media news on loan spreads is more pronounced in countries with better financial information and governance environments, a higher representation of privately owned media, and lower government control of banks. These findings underscore the significance of media coverage and sentiment in shaping the costs of bank loans worldwide.

Using an international sample of 38 countries, we find that firms located in countries experiencing greater socioeconomic damage from extreme climate events have higher implied costs of equity capital. This finding is attributed to heightened operational uncertainty, greater information asymmetry, and intensified agency conflicts that arise in the wake of extreme climate events. The relation is stronger for firms that derive substantial revenue from domestic markets, operate in climate-vulnerable industries, or are closely held by domestic institutional investors. The effect also varies across countries and is concentrated in markets characterized by low transparency or limited integration into the global financial market. While extreme climate events negatively influence firm performance and valuation, they raise corporate awareness of climate risk.