How do firms repair their reputations after a serious accounting restatement? To answer this question, we review firms' press releases and identify 1,765 reputation-building actions taken by: (1) 94 restating firms in the periods before and after their restatement; and (2) a set of matched control firms during contemporaneous periods. We posit that firms have incentives to target multiple stakeholders in a reputation repair strategy—including capital providers, customers, employees, and geographic communities—and that actions targeting each group generate positive market returns as reputation capital is repaired. Consistent with our predictions, the frequency of, and stock returns to, reputation-building actions are greater for restating firms in the period after their restatement than for the control groups. In addition, firm characteristics predict the types of stakeholders targeted by firms. Finally, actions targeted at both capital providers and other stakeholders are associated with improvements in the restating firm's financial reporting credibility. Data Availability: The data used in this study are available from the sources indicated.

We investigate a prominent allegation in congressional hearings that Moody׳s loosened its rating standards to chase revenue after it went public in 2000. Consistent with this allegation, Moody׳s ratings for both corporate bonds and structured finance products are significantly more favorable to issuers, relative to S&P׳s, after Moody׳s IPO. Moreover, Moody׳s ratings are more favorable for clients subject to greater conflict of interest. There is little evidence that Moody׳s higher ratings, post-IPO, are more informative, measured as expected default frequencies (EDFs) or as the probability of default. Our findings inform the debate on whether financial gatekeepers should be publicly traded.

A growing literature investigates the association between stock return variation and several aspects of information and governance structures, in both a cross-country setting and a cross-firm setting within the U.S. Papers use either idiosyncratic stock return volatility or R2 as interchangeable measures of firm-specific return variation but report inconsistent results. An important reason for the differing interpretations is the assumption about whether lower R2 (or higher ) captures firm-specific news or noise. We document that higher (or equivalently, lower R2) resembles noise. In addition, we show, analytically and empirically, that different results obtain when using R2 or because the systematic risk inherent in the R2 metric is also correlated with the independent variable of interest. Therefore, we recommend that when assessing the association between R2 (or ) and some independent variable, researchers (1) control for elements of systematic risk and (2) triangulate their findings with other measures of information environment. Data Availability: The data in this study are available from commercial providers, e.g., WRDS, Compustat, CRSP, I/B/E/S.

We examine (1) whether the accounting, governance, and investing practices of Berkshire Hathaway investees are consistent with Warren Buffett's public statements on what constitutes good accounting, governance, and investing practices and (2) whether these practices are associated with Berkshire's initial “selection” or Buffett's subsequent “influence.” Compared to control firms, we find that Berkshire investees are highly likely to follow Buffett's investment philosophy, somewhat likely to follow his preferred accounting, disclosure, and compensation policies, but unlikely to follow the board-related governance practices that we can measure. Second, we find some evidence that the business practices of future Berkshire investees are more aligned with Buffett's beliefs in the pre-investment period compared to control firms. Third, we find relatively modest evidence that investees improve a few of their business practices subsequent to Berkshire's initial investment. However, and overall, Buffett does not appear to be especially influential in the subsequent accounting, governance, and investing decisions of Berkshire investees, likely because he has already taken into account the attributes he cares most about in the initial investment decision. Data Availability: Except for the Gunning Fog Index and family firm status, other data in this study are available from commercial providers, e.g., CDA/Spectrum Institutional Money Manager Holdings, Compustat, CRSP.