We study human capital reallocation following firm-specific idiosyncratic shocks. We analyze relegation battles in the English Premier League, a setting that offers well-identified idiosyncratic shocks as well as both individual-level and firm-level productivity metrics. Following a negative idiosyncratic shock, we find that relatively more productive players move to more productive clubs and maintain their long-term productivity. They get replaced with lower productivity players. Overall, our results show that in a setting with highly transferable and observable skills, idiosyncratic shocks lead to a reallocation of human capital that moves the industry toward a better overall match between individual-level and firm-level productivity.

This paper introduces two methods of hiding loan losses and analyzes how they affect a bank's loan interest income, payments on deposits, liquidity and moral hazard. The analysis reveals that a hiding method represents a Ponzi scheme. Contrary to classic theory, e.g. Diamond (1984), moral hazard may arise even though a bank's loan portfolio is diversified. Alternative instruments to eliminate hiding are investigated. Under specific circumstances, a Ponzi scheme may provide a socially optimal method to create liquidity and prevent a failure of a solvent but illiquid bank.

This paper studies the extent to which macro-finance term structure models are susceptible to predictive uncertainty. We propose a general form of arbitrage-free models and quantify the relative importance of unpredictable priced risk variance, as well as macro-finance model uncertainty and learning uncertainty in predictability. Predictive performance and relative contributions of uncertainty sources are dynamically measured based on Bayesian methods, revealing dominating priced risk variance and other important uncertainty sources at different points in time. Macro-finance model uncertainty is high for near-term forward spread forecasts and contributes up to 87% of predictive uncertainty prior to recessions, implying strong dispersion in the information content of macro variables when forming near-term monetary policy expectations.

We examine the role of race and racial concordance between financial advisors and their local community. We document significant differences in stock market participation based on community racial composition, as well as differences in the characteristics of communities served by minority advisors. Notably, minority advisors are more likely to serve racially concordant communities, which tend to be poorer. We find that racial concordance has only a modest relation with local stock market participation. However, while minority advisors are more likely to leave the industry, this relation is mitigated among advisors located in more concordant communities.

I provide evidence that loan loss accounting affects procyclical lending through its impact on regulatory actions. Regulators are more likely to place banks with inadequate loan loss allowances under enforcement actions that restrict lending, leading these banks to lend less during downturns. Further, I find that banks with lower regulatory ratings lend less when they have more timely provisions, consistent with research theorizing that timely provisions increase transparency and inhibit regulatory forbearance. This regulatory action mechanism expands on prior research that has focused on the effect of loan loss recognition on regulatory capital adequacy during economic downturns.

This study estimates the corporate tax savings from financial derivatives. I document a 3.6 and 4.4 percentage point reduction in three-year current and cash effective tax rates (ETRs), respectively, after a firm initiates a derivatives program. The decline in cash ETR equates to 10.69 million in tax savings for the average firm and 4.0 billion for the entire sample of 375 new derivatives users. Of these amounts, 8.75 million and 3.3 billion, respectively, are incremental to tax savings that theory suggests are a byproduct of risk management. Collectively, these findings provide economic insight into the prevalence of derivatives-based tax avoidance.

Using a unique empirical setting, family firms in the S&P 500, Ali et al. [Ali, A., Chen, T.-Y., Radhakrishnan, S., 2007. Corporate disclosures by family firms. Journal of Accounting and Economics, doi:10.1016/j.jacceco.2007.01.006] contribute to a growing body of research on the relation between corporate governance and corporate disclosure quality. Using an indicator variable for sub-sample membership as an instrument for differing agency costs, the authors interpret their findings as consistent with family firms facing lower overall agency costs and providing higher quality corporate disclosures. However, their empirical findings are open to alternative interpretations and in totality present relatively weak, indirect evidence of a relation between corporate governance and the quality of corporate disclosure.

This paper examines the shareholders’ perceptions of the costs and benefits associated with the use of pooling-of-interests. The paper focuses on the market's reaction to the SEC's adoption of SAB 96. This regulation-forced firms to chose between using pooling-of-interests and maintaining their share repurchase programs. Overall, the results suggest shareholders perceive there to be a net cost when managers choose to use pooling-of-interests. These findings should be of particular interest to regulators, practitioners and researchers.