This paper investigates catering as a motivation for substitution between share repurchases and dividend payments. I hypothesize that firms cater to investor demand by repurchasing shares when investors place a premium on the stock price of firms that repurchase shares, and by paying dividends when investors place a higher value on dividend-paying firms. I propose a proxy to measure the relative preference for repurchases over dividends—the difference premium. Results show that the decision to repurchase shares or to pay dividends depends on this premium. Firms channel higher fractions of the additional payout dollars toward share repurchases when this premium is high. The market reaction to dividend changes is more favorable when firms act in accordance with the catering hypothesis. Overall, I find that catering plays a role in the substitution between repurchases and dividends.

Deregulation of the trucking industry and significantly lowered transportation costs led to large, widespread, and plausibly exogenous reductions in inventory for U.S. firms, with consequent increased supply-chain disruption (SCD) costs. We find evidence that increased SCD costs help explain the puzzling long-term trend of increasing average U.S. firm cash holdings. We also find that firms facing higher expected costs of disruptions generally save more cash from capital freed up via supply-chain management innovations. Finally, we document significant postdisruption declines in cash holdings consistent with cash as a primary source of financing during disruptions.

We investigate stock returns, market quality, and options market activity around the flash crash of May 6, 2010. Abnormal returns are negative on the day of and the day after the flash crash for stocks that had trades that executed during the crash subsequently cancelled by either Nasdaq or NYSE Arca. Consistent with studies that suggest that other sources of liquidity withdrew from the markets during the flash crash, we find that the fraction of trades executed by the NYSE increases during this volatile period. Market quality deteriorates following the flash crash as bid-ask spreads increase and quote depths decrease. Evidence from the options markets indicates that investor uncertainty increased around the time of the crash and remained elevated for several days.

Accelerated share repurchases (ASRs) are credible commitments by firms to repurchase shares immediately. Including an ASR in a repurchase program reduces the flexibility that firms have to alter an announced program in response to subsequent changes in the price and liquidity of its shares, unexpected shocks to cash flow and/or investment, etc. Thus, we investigate whether firms' decisions to include ASRs in their repurchase programs are associated with factors expected to influence the costs of lost flexibility and the benefits of enhanced credibility and immediacy. We find robust evidence consistent with the costs of lost flexibility and the benefits of credibility and immediacy being important determinants of ASR adoption. Additionally, we find that ASR announcements are associated with positive average abnormal stock returns.

The median U.S. non-regulated firm reports a 47% decline in leverage ratio between 1980 and 2010. We investigate whether the cost-benefit tradeoff to shareholders, captured by the valuation impact of an additional dollar of debt on owners' equity, is an explanation for the observed change in leverage. Using Faulkender and Wang (2006) methodology, we find that shareholders view increasing debt to have a negative impact on their wealth, that is, shareholders perceive firms to be over-levered. Further, the net cost of issuing additional debt has increased steadily for three decades beginning in 1980 before declining marginally after 2010. This trend holds for different groups of firms classified on factors known to affect capital structure decisions. Managers respond to the changing cost to shareholders by reducing (increasing) leverage when the cost of debt increases (decreases). The time-series pattern in the marginal cost of debt persists after controlling for firm-specific characteristics. We find that macroeconomic factors, such as federal debt, play a role in explaining the marginal value of debt.

Stock repurchases are controversial. Researchers often view the positive association between free cash flow and the volume of the stock repurchases to be in the shareholders’ interest and the positive association between executive options and stock repurchases to be in the managers’ interest. Using firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings as a measure of ethical culture—one that increases the cost of self-serving behavior for managers— we examine whether a firm’s CSR rating is related to its stock repurchase decisions. Although the baseline regression shows a positive association between CSR and repurchases, we find that CSR amplifies the positive association between free cash flow and stock repurchases and lessens the positive association between executive options and stock repurchases. These results indicate that ethical culture might play a role in repurchase decisions: it may encourage repurchases aligned with shareholders’ interests and discourage those primarily in managers’ interest. Furthermore, we also find that high CSR firms are associated with a greater completion rate of announced repurchase programs and receive more favorable stock market reaction to their repurchase announcements.

Using data on corruption convictions from the U.S. Department of Justice, we find that auditors charge higher fees when a firm is headquartered in a more corrupt district. This result is robust to a wide range of time and location fixed effects, using capital city isolation as an instrument, and propensity score matching. We also find that, relative to those in non-corrupt districts, firms in corrupt districts are more likely to have weak internal controls and restate earnings, and that their auditors exert greater effort. This evidence suggests that auditing firms located in corrupt areas entails additional risk, which auditors price into fees.