Advertising is a critical competitive tool that shapes interactions among firms in the product market. Using third-party tracked data on advertising outlet costs, I find nontrivial portion of public firms, even those with intense activities, do not disclose expenses their financial statements, indicating significant disclosure discretion. further use category-level to develop firm-specific meas...

SYNOPSIS: Earnings management remains a popular topic of debate and discussion among investors, regulators, analysts, and the public. One mechanism that might mitigate earnings management is auditors’ industry expertise. Using a large sample of clients of Big 6 auditors, this research examines the association between auditor industry expertise, measured in terms of both auditor market share in ...

Which electorates receive targeted funding, and does targeted funding swing votes? To answer these questions, I focus on four discretionary programs introduced by the Australian federal government during the 2001-04 election cycle: Roads to Recovery, Stronger Families and Communities, Sustainable Regions, and Regional Partnerships. Together, these programs totalled well over $1 billion dollars....

I use a machine learning technique to classify the universe of active US equity mutual funds as quantitative , who mostly rely of computer-driven models and xed rules, or discretionary , who mostly rely on human judgement. I rst document several new facts about quantitative investing. I then propose an equilibrium model in which quantitative funds have a greater information processing capacity ...