Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT We examine whether U.S. immigration policy, specifically the H‐1B visa program, affects the likelihood of financial misconduct. We argue that employers have leverage over employees on H‐1B visas because such employees must maintain H‐1B–eligible employment to legally reside in the United States. We posit that companies relying on H‐1B visas to hire workers in accounting roles have an increased ability to misreport their financial statements due to the greater costs H‐1B employees face if they are unexpectedly fired for not following the demands of their bosses or for blowing the whistle on misconduct. Using the sharp reduction in the H‐1B visa cap in 2004 as a shock to such employment, we find that companies that relied on this visa program for accounting roles pre‐shock experience a 2.3 percentage point decline in accounting irregularities post‐shock. Cross‐sectional tests show that the reduction in irregularities is greater in companies where H‐1B employees have (1) a greater influence on financial reporting or (2) fewer job opportunities. In addition, the relation between H‐1B visa use and irregularities is stronger in companies whose investors are more focused on near‐term earnings targets. We corroborate our findings using the outcome of H‐1B visa lotteries as shocks to such employment.

ABSTRACT This paper examines how increased competition among environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating agencies relates to ESG rating quality. We exploit the entry of Sustainalytics as a new ESG rating agency in 2010. We conduct a difference‐in‐differences analysis and provide three main findings. First, we find that higher competition decreases incumbents' ESG rating disagreements of the same scope. The negative relation between competition and ESG rating disagreement persists for same‐scope rating metrics not covered by Sustainalytics, suggesting that neither learning nor herding drive the results. The relationship between competition and rating disagreement strengthens for firms with more ESG disclosures, which generally require more effort to analyze. Second, we find that incumbents' ratings of ESG concerns are more strongly associated with future negative ESG news for firms additionally covered by Sustainalytics. This finding is consistent with competition improving ratings' ability to predict future negative ESG incidents. Third, we find that incumbents evaluate more difficult‐to‐measure outcome metrics for firms covered by Sustainalytics, consistent with competition inducing more effort. Overall, our findings suggest that competition serves as an implicit disciplining mechanism of ESG rating agencies' quality.

ABSTRACT We investigate the effects of a qualitative tax disclosure mandate aimed at improving tax transparency and compliance by imposing reputational costs for firms. We use, as an exogenous shock, the 2016 UK reform that required large businesses to disclose their tax strategy. We find that treated firms—those that must publish a tax strategy report—also significantly increase the volume of tax strategy disclosure in their annual reports, but this disclosure contains more boilerplate. The standalone tax strategy reports contain narratives similar to those in the annual reports, are sticky, and their quality is correlated with those of disclosures on gender and human rights. Turning to real behavioral changes, we document no significant effect on tax planning across several proxies and firm characteristics. While we find that the mandate increased media attention on treated firms, our results suggest that this enforcement channel might not work in the context of qualitative disclosure, which may be hard to verify for outside stakeholders. Even in subsamples of firms for which we would expect higher reputational costs, we document similar responses. Taken together, our findings indicate that mandating qualitative tax disclosure has incentivized firms to portray themselves as good tax citizens without changing their practices.

ABSTRACT We examine firms' trade‐offs in their voluntary disclosure decisions following negative media coverage of climate change incidents. By combining a keyword discovery algorithm and a fine‐tuned BERT model, we identify “hard” and “soft” climate disclosures on Twitter. Our findings indicate that firms tend to issue climate tweets as a rapid response to negative climate incidents. Additionally, firms with a history of hard climate change disclosure, as measured by ESG reports, are more likely to issue climate‐related responses than firms without such a history. Furthermore, we show that prior hard disclosure is associated with hard responses when the incident receives moderate media attention, but with soft responses when the incident receives low media attention. Our findings provide empirical insights for dynamic disclosure theory by illustrating how prior disclosure shapes firms' response strategies to negative media coverage.

ABSTRACT We present the first comprehensive descriptive evidence on the labor market and personal consequences for audit professionals in the United States who are named in SEC or PCAOB enforcement actions. Three key findings emerge. First, between 38% and 73% of culpable auditors depart from their firms within one year after the enforcement event. These departure rates are three to four times higher compared with a sample of non‐culpable auditors. Second, 83% of culpable auditors departing from Big 4 accounting firms exit the profession, compared with 58% of a departing non‐culpable comparison group. In contrast, about 77% of the culpable auditors leaving non–Big 4 accounting firms remain in public accounting, compared with 51% of a departing non‐culpable comparison group. Third, using novel data on personal real estate holdings, we find that culpable auditors do not appear to engage in markedly different transactions around enforcement compared with a comparison sample of non‐culpable individuals.

Abstract Patent applications often reveal proprietary information to competitors, but does such disclosure harm firms or also benefit them? We develop and empirically support a theory showing that when firms patent enhancements to incumbent, nondisruptive technologies, they can cooperate more easily on these technologies, increasing their profitability. The downside of cooperating on nondisruptive technologies is that the investment in and commitment to disruptive technologies decline. To improve their commitment to disruptive technologies, some firms rely more on trade secrecy. We provide empirical support for these predictions. We document that after a patent reform that made information about patent applications widely accessible, firms cooperate more and charge higher markups. Furthermore, the nature of patented innovation has changed, with the proportion of nondisruptive patents increasing substantially. Finally, while some firms start patenting more, others patent less and rely more on trade secrecy, with the response depending on the attractiveness of firms' innovation prospects.

ABSTRACT Classification of financial statement elements into categories is an inherent, integral part of the financial reporting system. Although prior research documents that categories influence users’ perceptions of included items, we explore the reverse effect—how classifying items in a category can impact perceptions of the category itself and its other members. Using categorization theory from psychology and accounting literature and exploiting the classification challenges inherent to the crypto asset setting, we predict and find that classifying individual items into a category can impact equity analysts’ perceptions of the category itself and perceptions of the category's other members. We also explore the boundaries of this effect and find that categories like intangibles, with fewer common prototypical features, are more susceptible to these classification effects. Our results show several ways in which balance sheet classification could lead to unintended consequences for users.

ABSTRACT We introduce a novel measure of CEO depression by applying machine learning models that analyze vocal acoustic features from CEOs' conference call recordings. Our research was preregistered via the Journal of Accounting Research 's registration‐based editorial process. In this study, we validate this measure and examine associated factors. We find that greater firm risk is positively associated with CEO depression, whereas higher job demands are negatively associated with CEO depression. Female and older CEOs show a lower likelihood of depression. Using this novel measure, we then explore the relationship between CEO depression and career outcomes. Although we do not find any evidence that CEO depression is associated with CEO turnover, we find some evidence that turnover‐performance sensitivity is higher among depressed CEOs. We also find limited evidence of higher compensation and higher pay‐performance sensitivity for depressed CEOs. This study provides new insights into the relationship between CEO mental health and career outcomes.

ABSTRACT Using consumer complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a measure for the quality of financial products and services, we present evidence of racial disparities in the service quality received by consumers. Consumers in high‐minority communities file more complaints than those in low‐minority communities, and the racial gap in financial complaints increased by more than 60% during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using a triple‐difference approach, we establish the role of corporate social attitudes, reflected in, for example, inclusive promotion practices and diversity in leadership, in mitigating the complaint racial gap and its pandemic‐period increase. Our results shed light on how inclusive corporate culture filters through an organization to benefit minority communities and underscore the effect of corporate social attitudes on important stakeholder outcomes.

ABSTRACT We estimate the prevalence and drivers of short squeezes after short‐selling attacks. Positive returns after attacks have a disproportionate tendency to fully reverse and are accompanied by heightened short covering, consistent with the presence of short squeezes. We assess and find no support for non‐squeeze drivers of these positive return reversals and show they are more likely to be accompanied by squeeze‐related news articles, increased stock volatility, and disruptions in the stock lending market. Using positive return reversals as a proxy for short squeezes, we estimate that 15% of short attacks experience squeezes, and squeeze risk increases with short sellers’ visibility but decreases with the credibility of their evidence. Additionally, squeezes appear to be precipitated by actions of firms and investors, including insider purchases, share recalls, retail investor trading, and firm disclosures. Our findings quantify a material risk and check on activist short selling and are especially timely given recent proposed short‐selling restrictions.