This study examines the strategic use of corporate philanthropy programs to achieve financial reporting objectives. Corporate-sponsored foundations allow managers to maintain stable levels of giving to charitable causes while providing substantial discretion as to the amount of contribution expense recorded on the income statement in any given period. I find that firms reporting small earnings increases make income-increasing discretionary foundation funding choices. This result is associated with firms that have strong equity market incentives to manage earnings. The evidence presented in this paper is consistent with firms using their charitable foundations as off-balance sheet reserves.

This study examines the causes and consequences of internal control deficiencies in the nonprofit sector using a sample of 27,495 public charities from 1999 to 2007. We first document that the likelihood of reporting an internal control problem increases for nonprofit organizations that are in poor financial health, growing, more complex, and/or smaller. We then present evidence that the disclosure of weak internal controls over financial reporting is negatively associated with subsequent donor support received after controlling for the current level of donor support and other factors influencing donations. We likewise report a negative association between internal control problems and subsequent government grants. Our results suggest that donors and government agencies, important sources of capital for nonprofit organizations, react either directly or indirectly to internal control information.

We assemble and describe a sample of 174,782 lawsuits filed against 218,437 public‐company lawsuit‐defendants in federal district court from 2006 to 2021. These lawsuits involve an array of allegations, including product liability, civil rights discrimination, contract breaches, improper compensation and labor practices, antitrust violations, corruption, securities violations, pollution, and intellectual property infringement. The sample exhibits rich variation across firms, industries, time, suit type, plaintiffs, and outcomes—reflecting not only firm activities but also social, political, and regulatory trends. Although many claims matter very little, some are important individually or in aggregate. We observe 23% of defendants experience a market value decline exceeding 10% of current assets around the lawsuit filing. Consistent with the notion that even low‐stakes claims, when numerous or persistent, can introduce frictions or reflect underlying issues, we find that aggregate legal exposure is associated with increased return volatility and decreased profitability. Subsequent tests indicate that materiality, public and private enforcement, and firms’ information environments (as well as other firm traits) are associated with managers’ decisions to disclose these claims. Collectively, our descriptive evidence establishes a foundation for further research into underexplored types of corporate litigation that represent a broad range of alleged wrongdoing and socially irresponsible behavior.

We examine whether donors reward nonprofit organizations that report better governance. From a sample of 10,846 organizations from 2008 to 2010, we first identify seven nonprofit governance dimensions using factor analysis. We then test whether the quality of governance influences donor decisions by including the seven governance factors in the standard donor's demand model. We find consistent evidence that donations and government grants are positively associated with six of the seven factors that capture good governance, including formal written policies (e.g., conflict of interest), independent audits and audit committees, review and approval of executive compensation, board oversight (e.g., board independence), management characteristics (e.g., no related parties), and accessible financial information. Our results have implications for nonprofit managers and regulators. Moreover, mandatory disclosure of governance policies for nonprofit organizations provides an interesting contrast to mandatory adoption of governance policies for publicly traded companies. JEL Classifications: G18; G38; H39; L30; L31; L38; M40; M41; M42; M48. Data Availability: All data are publicly available.