Using Glassdoor's list of “Top CEOs by Employees' Choice,” we adopt a regression discontinuity (RD) specification to establish a causal link between the employee approval of CEOs and firm value. Having a CEO included in the top list results in an increase in firm performance in both stock returns and return on assets. Having a top CEO significantly increases a firm's employee efficiency, attraction to future employees, hiring of high-quality laborers such as inventors, and attraction to the customers. Our findings establish that the CEO-employee relationship is an important, though intangible, component of a corporation, and we emphasize the critical role of perceived corporate culture in the spirit of Guiso et al. (2015).

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 imposes a 1 % excise tax on US corporate share repurchases, effective January 1, 2023. The tax's implementation is associated with a significant decline in corporate repurchases that is not offset by a corresponding increase in dividends. Aggregate repurchases decline from about $1 trillion in 2022 to just over $800 billion in 2023, and the average firm reduces quarterly repurchases (as a fraction of market capitalization) by roughly 25 %. The decline in repurchases by US firms far exceeds a contemporaneous decline in repurchases by Canadian firms, is large in a historical context, and is not driven by firm fundamentals. Tax-induced cuts to repurchases are associated with an increase in cash but no increase in investment, implying that the tax has not generated the stated policy objective.