Financial accounting, auditing, corporate governance, labor and industrial organization in auditing, network analysis.
“Labor Supply and Accounting Firm Mergers”
Committee: Joseph Weber (chair), John Core, Nemit Shroff, Andrew Sutherland
I examine how labor constraints affect the industrial organization of audit firms. Using a novel dataset that includes both large and small accounting firms, I identify labor supply shocks with the 150-Hour Rule and the Mobility Provision and find that accounting firms’ labor constraints increase their M&A activity. I also find that the 150-Hour Rule and the Mobility Provision lead to an increase in audit market concentration. This paper suggests that accounting labor regulation can have unintended consequences for audit market structure.
“Institutional Investor Attention and Firm Disclosure” with John Core and Andrew Sutherland
Conditionally accepted at The Accounting Review
We investigate whether temporary changes in institutional owner attention affect managers’ disclosure choices. We find that managers respond to attention by increasing the number of forecasts and 8-K filings. Although we find attention increases the quantity of disclosure, we find little overall change in information quality or liquidity.
Presented at Carnegie Mellon, the 2018 CFEA conference, the 2019 FARS conference, MIT Sloan, the University of California- Berkeley, the University of California- San Diego, Temple University, the University of Michigan, University of Texas at Dallas, and Washington University in St. Louis
“Boardroom Network and Corporate Performance: When Who You Know Contributes to What You Know”
I study how boardroom network connections of directors affect firm performance. I isolate the effect of boardroom network centrality on firm performance using an instrumental variable approach based on director deaths at distant firms within the network. My findings indicate that boardroom centrality causes firm performance to deteriorate, suggesting that the costs of proprietary information dissemination might be higher than the benefits of richer information embedded into boards’ monitoring.
Presented at MIT Sloan
“Geographic Spillovers and Corporate Decisions” with John Core and Rodrigo Verdi
We examine how geographic spillovers manifesting through information sharing among people in the same locality are associated with corporate investment and accruals decisions. We measure geographic spillovers using distances among firms in a metropolitan statistical area and find that in high-spillover areas, managers’ investment and accruals decisions are more similar and are of better quality than in low-spillover areas.
Presented at 2015 AAA Annual Meeting and MIT Sloan