We predict that institutional investors in loan syndicates charge bellwether firms lower loan spreads as compensation for having access to private information that can help identify trading opportunities in other firms' public market securities. Consistent with this prediction, when lending to bellwether firms, institutional investors charge a loan premium that is between 17 and 25 bps lower relative to non-bellwether firms, and earn annualized excess returns of 1.5–2.2% from trading in other firms' securities. Findings from cross-sectional analyses reveal that the reduction in loan spread is larger when the value of private information from bellwether firms is higher. Additionally, institutional lenders' excess returns are lower when lending to more transparent bellwether borrowers and when they pay a lower price—as reflected in loan spreads—in exchange for the private information, supporting the notion that the value of private information relates to institutional investors’ trading performance.

This study examines whether audit firms hire former PCAOB employees in response to negative PCAOB inspection reports, and whether such hiring leads to reductions in future inspection deficiencies and an increase in audit quality. We find that the number of PCAOB employees hired by large audit firms is positively related to the number of deficiencies reported in their prior inspection reports, and that the number of deficiencies reported in firms' future inspection reports is negatively associated with the number of former PCAOB employees hired. However, we find no significant association between the number of former PCAOB employees that a firm hires and improvement in audit quality. These findings suggest that former PCAOB personnel possess valuable knowledge about how to perform and document audit procedures to satisfy PCAOB reviewers, but that this expertise does not necessarily have direct implications for the accuracy and reliability of clients' financial reports.