Working Papers
Pay Transparency Laws and Employee Satisfaction: Evidence from State-Level Regulations with Jedson Pinto
Revise and Resubmit (1st round)
Abstract
We examine the implications of pay transparency laws on employee compensation satisfaction and job mobility. While organizational justice theory suggests transparency should enhance satisfaction by improving procedural fairness, social comparison theory predicts that visible pay differences may reduce satisfaction through unfavorable social comparisons. Using staggered adoption of state-level pay transparency laws as a quasi-natural experiment, we analyze over 7 million employee reviews across U.S. states from 2004-2024. The findings reveal that transparency laws are associated with decreased employee compensation satisfaction, particularly among full-time and senior employees. These effects extend to broader workplace satisfaction measures and manifest in behavioral changes through decreased job tenure and distinctive mobility patterns: increased external departures coupled with higher internal job transitions. These findings highlight the complex tradeoffs in workplace transparency initiatives and suggest that the relationship between transparency and employee welfare may be more nuanced than previously theorized.
When Shorts Go Public: Mandatory Short Position Disclosure and Management Guidance with Ashiq Ali, Jedson Pinto, and Edward Sul
Under Review
Presented at 2026 HARC, 2026 FARS Midyear Meeting, 2026 Lone Star Conference, 2026 EAA Annual Congress (scheduled), 2026 AAA JIAR Conference (scheduled), 2025 UNC Alumni Accounting Conference*, Bayes Business School*, University of Oxford*, University of Texas at Dallas
Submitted as a comment letter to the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), in response to "Short Selling Regulation: Call for Evidence"
Abstract
We examine whether mandatory disclosure of large short positions affects corporate voluntary disclosure decisions by exploiting the 2012 EU236 Rule, which requires public disclosure of short positions exceeding 0.5% of share capital. We find that EU firms increase both the propensity and frequency of management guidance issuances after the regulation. This effect is concentrated among small firms, with low analyst coverage, and in countries with stronger regulatory enforcement. Further analyses reveal that the additional guidance is of higher quality (more quantitative, broader, and detailed), elicits stronger market reactions, and conveys a higher share of bad news disclosures. Finally, EU firms that increase guidance experience a subsequent reduction in short selling activity, consistent with the use of voluntary disclosure to deter short selling pressure. Collectively, our findings counter concern that mandatory position disclosure may weaken the monitoring role of short sellers; instead, the heightened salience of large disclosed short positions motivates enhanced voluntary disclosure.
* Presented by a coauthor