This study examines whether facilitation payments drive managers to manipulate earnings, thus weakening financial disclosure transparency. I find economically and statistically significant evidence that relate positively earnings management levels in China. The impact of on is more pronounced when firms have relatively weak political power, less effective external monitoring, fewer growth optio...

In this paper, we present the results from a field experiment in the Netherlands in which single mothers on welfare were stimulated to find a job. Two policy instruments were introduced: an earnings disregard and job creation. The experiment was performed at the level of municipalities. In our analysis we make a distinction between native and immigrant welfare recipients. For immigrant single m...

To estimate the cost of a data breach to the inflicted firm, this study examines the relationship between a breach incident and changes in the inflicted firm’s profitability, perceived risk, and the inflicted firms’ information environment transparency. Profitability is measured as reported earnings and analysts’ earnings forecasts. Perceived risk is measured as reported stock return volatility...

In this study, we examine the relationship between financial literacy and bank reporting transparency for a sample of banks from U.S. Following prior literature, employ discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP) as our primary measure transparency. We argue that their customers can influence managers’ behaviors with respect to both mechanics provisioning opportunistic actions. Financially litera...

Increasing income and wealth inequality has led to renewed interest in understanding and explaining wealth and income distributions, and in particular the recent growth in their top shares (Piketty, 2014). The literature has largely emphasized the role of earnings inequality in explaining wealth inequality. Indeed, Bewley-Aiyagari economies, which focus on precautionary savings as an optimal re...

The singular focus of public debate on the "top 1 percent" of households overlooks the component of earnings inequality that is arguably most consequential for the "other 99 percent" of citizens: the dramatic growth in the wage premium associated with higher education and cognitive ability. This Review documents the central role of both the supply and demand for skills in shaping inequality, di...

As women's labor-force participation and earnings have grown, so has the likelihood that wives outearn their husbands. A common concern is that these couples may be at heightened risk of divorce. Yet with the rise of egalitarian marriage, wives' relative earnings may be more weakly associated with divorce than in the past. We examine trends in the association between wives' relative earnings an...

Increases in the association between spouses' earnings have the potential to increase inequality as marriages increasingly consist of two high-earning or two low-earning partners. This article uses log-linear models and data from the March Current Population Survey to describe trends in the association between spouses' earnings and estimate their contribution to growing earnings inequality amon...