Using a large sample of firms with single-name credit default swap (CDS) contracts in 30 countries, we document the evidence that political uncertainty, proxied by national election dummy, is positively related to firm-level credit risk. Specifically, this positive relation is more pronounced for the firms that have no political connection or poor international diversification, and in the countries with higher political uncertainty and lower investor protections. Further, by using a difference-in-differences approach, we find evidence to support idiosyncratic volatility and debt rollover channels through which political uncertainty affects the credit risk of individual firm.

This study examines the influence of political uncertainty proxied by national election on analysts’ forecasts across 28 countries. We find analysts’ forecasts’ accuracy decreases, and the optimism increases in national election years compared to these in non-election years. Further analysis supports information opacity, local political connections, politically sensitives industries and the quality of institutions channels through which political uncertainty affects the analysts’ forecasts.

We generalize the asset dynamics assumptions of Leland (1994b) and Leland and Toft (1996) to a state dependent variance with constant elasticity process (CEV) and obtain analytical solutions for corporate debt and equity value. We use the GMM technique to extract the parameters by fitting the empirical data in the equity and credit default swap markets simultaneously. We find that the elasticity parameter is significantly different from zero for most of the firms and that the CEV model performs much better than the model with constant volatility in both in-sample fittings and out-of-sample predictions of CDS spreads.

Using individual records of about 950,000 financial advisors, we find that the probability and intensity of financial advisor misconduct significantly increase after local newspaper closures. The impact is more pronounced in counties with a higher proportion of seniors, minorities, and individuals with lower education levels. Male advisors are more likely to commit misconduct following newspaper closures than female advisors. The sensitivity of advisors’ job turnover to misconduct decreases after closures, suggesting a lower cost of committing misconduct. Our evidence indicates that local newspapers play a distinct role in mitigating financial advisor misconduct, as media exposure raises the costs of misbehavior.

We compile a novel data set on mandatory environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure around the world to analyze the stock liquidity effects of such disclosure mandates. We document a positive effect of ESG disclosure mandates on firm‐level stock liquidity. The effects are strongest if the disclosure requirements are implemented by government institutions, not on a comply‐or‐explain basis, and coupled with strong enforcement by informal institutions. Firms with weaker information environments benefit more from ESG disclosure mandates. Our results support the view that ESG disclosure regulation improves the information environment and has beneficial capital market effects.

Credit default swaps (CDSs) are a major financial innovation related to debt contracting. Because CDS markets facilitate bad news being incorporated into equity prices via cross-market information spillover, CDS availability may curb firms’ information hoarding. We find that CDS trading on a firm’s debt reduces the future stock price crash risk. This effect is stronger in active CDS markets, when the main lenders are CDS market dealers with securities trading subsidiaries, or when managers have more motivation to hoard information. Our findings suggest that debt market financial innovations curtail the negative equity market effects of firms withholding bad news.

With the adoption of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD), market behavior around earnings releases displays no significant change in return volatility (after controlling for decimalization of stock trading) but significant increases in trading volume due to difference in opinion. Analyst forecast dispersion increases, and increases in other measures of disagreement and difference of opinion suggest greater difficulty in forming forecasts beyond the current quarter. Corporations increase the quantity of voluntary disclosures, but only for current quarter earnings. Thus, Reg FD seems to increase the quantity of information available to the public while imposing greater demands on investment professionals.