Does Compensation Disclosure Lead to Better Job Performance? Evidence from the Mandatory CFO Pay Disclosure

The 2006 SEC rule, by changing the definition of Named Executive Officers, for the first time mandated the disclosure of CFO compensation. We exploit this setting and use a difference-in-differences research design to study the impact of CFO compensation disclosure on CFO job performance. We hypothesize that the disclosure of CFO compensation information, by facilitating shareholder monitoring of the board and motivating the board to improve CFO compensation contract design, leads to better CFO job performance in providing high-quality financial reports. Analyses support our prediction: The treatment firms, which, under the 2006 rule, start to disclose CFO compensation information, compared to the control firms, which were already disclosing CFO compensation prior to 2006, experience a significant improvement in financial report quality as exhibited in the reduced frequency of both accounting restatements and internal control weaknesses, as well as improved accrual quality. Further strengthening our conclusion, the improvement in CFO performance in financial reporting for the treatment firms is more pronounced for firms with younger CFOs, firms with CFOs subject to weaker internal monitoring, and firms facing higher litigation risk. We contribute to the disclosure literature by showing a causal impact of compensation disclosure on job performance. Our findings also have regulatory implications

Do Managers Disclose or Withhold Bad News? Evidence from Short Interest

ABSTRACT Prior studies provide conflicting evidence as to whether managers have a general tendency to disclose or withhold bad news. A key challenge for this literature is that researchers cannot observe the negative private information that managers possess. We tackle this challenge by constructing a proxy for managers\u27 private bad news (residual short interest) and then perform a series of tests to validate this proxy. Using management earnings guidance and 8-K filings as measures of voluntary disclosure, we find a negative relation between bad-news disclosure and residual short interest, suggesting that managers withhold bad news in general. This tendency is tempered when firms are exposed to higher litigation risk, and it is strengthened when managers have greater incentives to support the stock price. Based on a novel approach to identifying the presence of bad news, our study adds to the debate on whether managers tend to withhold or release bad news. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study

Do Firms Redact Information from Material Contracts to Conceal Bad News?

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows firms to redact information from material contracts by submitting confidential treatment requests, if redacted information is not material and would cause competitive harm upon public disclosure. This study examines whether managers use confidential treatment requests to conceal bad news. We show that confidential treatment requests are positively associated with residual short interest, a proxy for managers’ private negative information. This positive association is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk, higher executive equity incentives, and lower external monitoring. Confidential treatment requests filed by firms with higher residual short interests are associated with higher stock price crash risk and poorer future performance. Collectively, our results suggest that managers redact information from material contracts to conceal bad news.</jats:p

The Effect of External Audits: Evidence from Voluntary Audits of Hedge Funds

SYNOPSIS: Using the setting of hedge funds, we document two important merits of external audits. We find that incentive fee rates (i.e., performance-based compensation to fund managers) are higher for audited funds than for unaudited funds. In contrast, management fee rates (i.e., fund-size-based compensation to fund managers) do not differ depending on audit status. We also find some evidence that audited funds attract more capital inflows from investors than unaudited funds do after funds report high performance. Our findings indicate that hedge fund investors appreciate the value of external audits

The Effect of External Audits: Evidence from Voluntary Audits of Hedge Funds

SYNOPSIS: Using the setting of hedge funds, we document two important merits of external audits. We find that incentive fee rates (i.e., performance-based compensation to fund managers) are higher for audited funds than for unaudited funds. In contrast, management fee rates ( i.e., fund-size-based compensation to fund managers) do not differ depending on audit status. We also find some evidence that audited funds attract more capital inflows from investors than unaudited funds do after funds report high performance. Our findings indicate that hedge fund investors appreciate the value of external audits.N