In this article, we examine whether internal governance, the process through which subordinate managers effectively monitor the chief executive officer (CEO), can improve a firm's liquidity. Using the difference in horizons between a CEO and his immediate subordinates to measure internal governance, we show that firms with better internal governance have lower information asymmetry and higher liquidity. Further, we show that internal governance is effective in enhancing liquidity for firms with CEOs close to retirement, firms that require higher firm-specific skills, and firms with experienced subordinate managers. Our results are robust to inclusion of conventional governance measures, alternative model specifications, and different measures of internal governance and liquidity.

Motivated by the internal governance theory, we investigate the links between subordinate executives' horizon and firm policies. Using the number of years to retirement to capture subordinate executives' horizon inside the firm, we find that subordinates' horizon is positively associated with firm's risk-taking, long-term investments growth, and research and development productivity, but negatively related to the dividend decision and the payout ratio. We also find a positive relationship between subordinates' horizon and firm value. Our results are robust to controlling for alternative explanations including the pay gap between CEO and subordinate executives, executives' overconfidence, CEO's decision horizon, and other governance mechanisms. The results are also robust to alternative measures of subordinates' horizon, and after addressing potential endogeneity concerns.

We investigate the relationship between internal governance and firms' innovation. We hypothesize that internal governance stemming from the difference in expected employment horizons between a CEO and her subordinate executives improves a firm's innovation. Using the age difference between a CEO and her subordinate executives as the primary measure of internal governance, we find a strong positive relationship between internal governance and firms' innovation output, and scientific and economic values. We show that the positive relation is causal and robust based on empirical tests including exogenous variation in internal governance resulting from non-forced CEO turnovers. We further show that the relationship between internal governance and innovation is more pronounced when external governance is weaker and when subordinate executives are expected to have more influence on the board. Cross-sectional analysis shows that internal governance spurs innovation in younger firms, firms led by generalist CEOs, and when the likelihood of insider successions is higher.

We examine the relation between political uncertainty and narrative disclosure complexity in conference calls. Using firm-level political uncertainty, we find that political uncertainty is positively associated with firms’ disclosures complexity as measured by the Fog index. Decomposing complexity into two latent components—information and obfuscation—we show that political uncertainty significantly increases the obfuscation but has no impact on the information. Further analysis reveals that complex disclosure is motivated by expected poor future performance amid political uncertainty. We also show that, during periods of heightened political uncertainty, obfuscated disclosure is associated with reduced earnings informativeness, increased dispersion in analyst forecasts, and higher volatility in forecast revisions. These findings are robust to including and excluding sentences containing complex political bigrams when calculating Fog. Further evidence shows that, during periods of political uncertainty, managers tend to use a more ambiguous tone and provide scripted and shorter (longer) responses to analysts’ questions (presentations).