Research
Much of my research asks how firms adapt to legal, regulatory, and informational constraints. I study both formal regulation and legal and market institutions, including compliance, disclosure, litigation, creditor rights, and credit-rating thresholds, and examine how these institutions shape corporate decisions and outcomes for workers, investors, creditors, and financial markets.
I. Regulation, Incentives, & Corporate Behavior
I study how legal rules, regulatory requirements, and economic incentives shape corporate and managerial behavior, including through compliance, organizational adaptation, and regulatory arbitrage, and how these responses affect firms and their stakeholders.
Too Many Managers: The Strategic Use of Titles to Avoid Overtime Payments
with Lauren Cohen and Umit Gurun
The Review of Financial Studies, 2026.
with Lauren Cohen and Umit Gurun
The Review of Financial Studies, 2026.
Examines firms' strategic use of managerial titles around the federal overtime exemption threshold, showing how regulatory incentives can reshape organizational practices and worker compensation.
Journal · NBER · New York Times
Executive Compensation, Individual-Level Tax Rates, and Insider Trading Profits
with N. Goldman
Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2023.
Examines how executives respond to changes in individual tax rates, showing that higher taxes are associated with greater insider-trading profits and increased legal exposure.
Earnings Expectations and Employee Safety
with Judson Caskey
Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2017.
Shows that pressures to meet earnings benchmarks are associated with higher workplace injury rates, highlighting real consequences of corporate financial incentives for employees.
Journal · Harvard Business Review
II. Disclosure, Litigation & Corporate Behavior
My research also examines how disclosure requirements and legal exposure affect corporate decisions, including the unintended consequences that can arise when information becomes publicly available.
Disclosure and Lawsuits Ahead of IPOs
with Burcu Esmer and Suhas Sridharan
The Accounting Review, 2023.
Studies how public disclosure during the IPO process affects nonshareholder litigation and shows that confidential filing under the JOBS Act mitigates heightened pre-IPO litigation risk.
Earnings Announcements, Information Asymmetry, and Timing of Debt Offerings
with Jon Kerr
The Accounting Review, 2013.
Examines how firms time financing decisions around earnings announcements, showing that information asymmetry influences when firms issue loans, bonds, and equity.
Journal · The Wall Street Journal
III. Legal Institutions, Private Regulation & Credit Markets
A third strand of my research studies how legal institutions and private information intermediaries shape credit markets, including how creditor rights and quasi-regulatory constraints created by rating agencies affect firm, bank, and investor behavior.
Depositor Confidence and Creditor Rights: Evidence from State Bankruptcy Exemptions
Working Paper, 2026.
Examines how changes in borrowers' bankruptcy protections affect depositor confidence and bank funding, providing evidence on how creditor rights shape financial intermediation.
Publicizing the Tripwires: S&P’s Threshold Disclosures, Market Pricing, and Corporate Behavior
with Allen Huang and Shiheng Wang
Working Paper, 2026.
Studies financial thresholds disclosed by credit-rating agencies and shows how these nonbinding benchmarks influence issuer behavior and predict future rating actions.
Consensus Credit Ratings: A View from Banks
with Ben Lourie, Alexander Nekrasov, and Chenqi Zhu
Review of Accounting Studies, 2024.
Examines bank-generated credit ratings and their incremental information relative to traditional credit-rating agencies.
What Moves Stock Prices Around Credit Rating Changes?
with Omri Even-Tov
Review of Accounting Studies, 2021.
Studies information leakage and informed trading surrounding credit-rating announcements.
Journal · S&P Market Intelligence
Information Asymmetry and the Bond Coupon Choice
with D. Amiram, A. Kalay, and A. Kalay
The Accounting Review, 2018
Examines how information asymmetry influences the design of corporate bonds, showing how firms use coupon structure in response to information frictions in debt markets.
Real Activity Forecasts Using Loan Portfolio Information
with U. Khan
Journal of Accounting Research, 2016
Shows that information embedded in banks' loan portfolios helps predict future economic activity, highlighting the informational role of financial intermediaries.
Other Research
Economic Uncertainty and Investor Attention
with Daniel Andrei and Henry Friedman
Journal of Financial Economics, 2023.
Shows that economic uncertainty changes how investors allocate attention across firms, amplifying market reactions to earnings news and affecting the pricing of systematic risk.
Inter-Industry Network Structure and the Cross-Predictability of Earnings and Stock Returns
with Daniel Aobdia and Judson Caskey
Review of Accounting Studies, 2014
Shows how customer-supplier networks transmit information and economic shocks, with more central industries exerting greater influence on the performance of connected industries.
For a complete list of publications and working papers, see my CV or Google Scholar profile.