We offer new evidence on the relationship between competition and innovation that overcomes two measurement difficulties compromising the extant literature: aggregation at either firm level (or higher) of innovative activity, and the mediating influence of distance-to-technological-frontier. FDA awards of Breakthrough Therapy Designations (BTDs) on specific drugs, instrument stochastic unleveling of therapeutic (ie, product) markets. Rivals’ innovative responses generally show an inverted-U pattern in ex ante competitiveness of the shocked market. However, the shape of the relation changes with distance to technological frontier in that market, proxied by whether the rival project uses one of the technologies embedded in the BTD-awarded drug.

We introduce the idea of cross‐regulatory disclosure avoidance, whereby firms attempt to counteract expansions of disclosure under one regulation through actions that reduce disclosure under a different one. We study whether firms redact information from material contracts when they face new rules to disclose segment information. Using SFAS No. 131 as a plausibly exogenous shock to segment disclosure, we find that firms increasing the number of reported segments after the rule change exhibit a greater increase in redaction than firms maintaining the same number of segments. Consistent with proprietary cost motives, the increases are concentrated among firms with greater divergence in profitability across segments, higher abnormal segment profitability, and more negative abnormal stock returns in response to the finalization of the rule. Also, treated firms that redact after the rule change have abnormally profitable segments that they previously did not disclose. Firms that observables predict would increase redaction but did not experience declines in sales growth and profit margin. We find no evidence that agency cost motives drive the increases in redaction or, more generally, nondisclosure of segment performance before SFAS No. 131.

We study partially linear models when the outcome of interest and some of the covariates are observed in two different datasets that cannot be linked. This type of data combination problem arises very frequently in empirical microeconomics. Using recent tools from optimal transport theory, we derive a constructive characterization of the sharp identified set. We then build on this result and develop a novel inference method that exploits the specific geometric properties of the identified set. Our method exhibits good performances in finite samples, while remaining very tractable. We apply our approach to study intergenerational income mobility over the period 1850–1930 in the U.S. Our method allows us to relax the exclusion restrictions used in earlier work, while delivering confidence regions that are informative.

Prior research documents that mergers and acquisitions result in significant financial reporting risks. In this article, we examine whether acquirers that share a common auditor with the target experience higher post‐acquisition financial reporting quality (FRQ) and reduced audit fees. We find that same‐office, but not different‐office, common auditors are associated with improved post‐acquisition FRQ, as evidenced by a decreased likelihood of misstatement, lower F ‐score, and a lower likelihood of meeting or just beating analyst forecasts. We also find that same‐office common auditors are associated with a lower percentage change in audit fees. In additional tests, we find that these inferences are robust to limiting the sample to acquirers with multiple acquisitions or to acquirers and targets with no auditor switches in the prior 3 years. Together, our findings suggest that same‐office common auditors facilitate knowledge transfer about the target and provide important post‐acquisition benefits.

The provision of more frequent feedback to employees is increasing, although prior research has found mixed results as to the effect of increased feedback frequency on employee performance. Narcissism research identifies narcissistic oversensitivity as a key narcissistic subdimension that may result in particularly strong responses to performance feedback. We predict and find in an experiment that increased performance feedback frequency has a more negative impact on the performance accuracy of individuals with higher levels of narcissistic oversensitivity and that this negative interactive effect of feedback frequency and narcissistic oversensitivity is mitigated by the priming of a growth mindset. These results should be of practical interest to firms as they design their management control systems to improve employee performance, considering the variation in narcissistic oversensitivity among their employees. These results also contribute to recent accounting research on the effects of feedback frequency and employee mindsets.

One-third of deals in the venture capital (VC) market involve a founder and investor from the same university. Venture capitalists are more likely to invest in and place larger bets on startups with founders from their alma mater. These deals are also more likely to lead to IPOs postfunding. Tests using VC partner turnover confirm a direct link between education ties and funding likelihood. Taken together, our results suggest that university connections facilitate improved deal-making and outcomes, rather than diverting funds toward lower-quality startups.

We analyze whether and how the perceived federal‐level legal liability linked to federal judge ideology is associated with the likelihood of firms receiving going‐concern modified audit opinions and analyze the differential effects on Big 4 and non–Big 4 auditors. We find that Big 4 and non–Big 4 auditors converge in their going‐concern reporting decisions in circuits with more liberal judges. This convergence is caused by the greater effect of judge ideology on non–Big 4 auditors. Furthermore, we empirically examine the association between federal judge ideology and actual lawsuits against auditors and find that judge ideology has a greater impact on lawsuit likelihood for non–Big 4 auditors for the restating companies. When auditors are sued, both the payout likelihood and amount are greater in circuits with more liberal judges, with the effect being more pronounced for non–Big 4 auditors. This study provides evidence on how the perceived exposure to a gross negligence legal standard shapes auditors' going‐concern reporting incentives for the two tiers of auditors in the market. It also adds to the literature on auditor litigation.

Audit theory and regulation assumes that auditors’ commercial motivation threatens audit quality. In this registered report, we use data from two Big Four firms in the Netherlands and provide empirical evidence on the relation between auditors’ commercial motivation and (1) compensation, (2) total audit effort, and (3) audit quality. We proxy commercial motivation as the time that individual auditors report allocating to commercial activities. We hypothesize that auditors’ commercial effort is positively related to compensation and we find mixed support. Next, we hypothesize that auditors’ commercial effort is negatively related to the audit effort but we find no support. Turning to audit quality, we hypothesize a negative direct relation between auditors’ commercial effort and audit quality but we find no support. We also predict a positive indirect relation in which auditors’ commercial effort increases quality control reliance leading to higher audit quality. We find some support for this hypothesis but only when we use technical consultations to proxy for quality control. Auditors with greater commercial effort maintain quality because they rely more on technical consultations. In sum, our study challenges the assumption that auditors’ commercial effort threatens audit quality and questions the need for additional regulation to constrain commercial motivation.

We present evidence that the high estimated marginal propensities to consume (MPCs) from the leading household studies result in implausible macroeconomic counterfactuals. Using the 2008 tax rebate as a case study, we calibrate a standard macro model with the estimated micro MPCs to construct counterfactual macroeconomic consumption paths in the absence of a rebate. The counterfactual paths imply that consumption expenditures would have plummeted in spring and summer 2008 and mostly recovered in September 2008. We use narratives and forecasts to argue that these paths are implausible. We show that standard two-way fixed effect estimates of the micro MPCs are upward biased. When we correct for the biases, we estimate smaller micro MPCs using the CEX data than the previous literature. We show that realistic modifications of the model result in general equilibrium forces that dampen rather than amplify micro MPCs. The combination of smaller micro MPCs and dampening general equilibrium forces implies general equilibrium consumption multipliers that are below 0.2.

Environmental degradation and economic inequality are two of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century. We synthesize conceptual mechanisms that underpin inequality–environment linkages and take stock of the relevant empirical evidence. We propose three channels of interaction. We first describe how environmental benefits vary with household income. Second, we discuss how the cost of environmental policy is distributed across households. Third, we consider how income inequality and redistribution shape environmental outcomes. The three channels determine how both environmental quality and economic inequality matter for policy appraisal. We argue that it is crucial to consider inequality–environment linkages in economic research and policy design, as neither issue can be fully understood in isolation. We close by highlighting future research needs.