Do credit rating actions predict accounting fraud? The answer is yes, according to Allen H. Huang and Shiheng Wang of HKUST and their colleague. Their study also suggests that evidence of fraudulent accounting is strongest when it comes from issuer-paid credit rating agencies (CRAs); their investor-paid rivals are less able to detect fraud signals ... Read More

The “short-termism” induced by executive pay schemes is a major problem for firms and investors. Allen H. Huang of HKUST, together with overseas colleagues, provides important new insights into the negative consequences of executive myopia. The researchers examined the share repurchasing and mergers-and-acquisitions (M&A) behavior of firms whose CEOs have ... Read More

Sell-side financial analysts produce, acquire, and disseminate information, playing an important intermediary role in capital markets. Such analysts typically work alongside other analysts in brokerage houses. However, there is only limited understanding of how they collaborate, as most studies have treated financial analysts as isolated figures. HKUST ... Read More

Sell-side financial analysts produce, acquire, and disseminate information, playing an important intermediary role in capital markets. Such analysts typically work alongside other analysts in brokerage houses. However, there is only limited understanding of how they collaborate, as most studies have treated financial analysts as isolated figures. HKUST ... Read More

Securities class action lawsuits allow investors to recuperate investment losses caused by securities law violations. They are arguably the most significant litigation risk for firms listed in the United States and other major economics such as U.K., Australia and Canada. In these lawsuits, shareholders usually allege that company management defrauds ... Read More

Publicly-traded firms in the U.S. are legally required to disclose the material risks they face. Although the regulation was designed to protect investors, research by HKUST’s Allen H. Huang and Amy Y. Zang shows that it has unintended benefits for firms too. Working with a graduate of HKUST’s Accounting Ph.D. program, they explored how the legal language of ... Read More

HKUST’s Center for Business and Social Analytics (CBSA) generates quality insights from massive amounts of social data. Chair Professor HUI Kai-Lung, CBSA Director; Associate Professor Allen HUANG, CBSA Associate Director; and Dr LIM Hyungsoo, Postdoctoral Fellow at CBSA British mathematician Clive Humby famously coined the phrase “Data is the new oil” ... Read More

Political science studies show that judge ideology influences judicial votes in federal courts, with judges appointed by Democratic presidents being more liberal than those appointed by Republican presidents. Although legal doctrine plays an important role in deciding case outcomes, judges are more likely to obey legal doctrine when such doctrine supports ... Read More

Short sellers have been known to uncover companies that engage in financial. Indeed, several activist short sellers like Muddy Waters Research and Citron Research make a name for themselves by proactively targeting fraudsters, bringing their misconducts to light, and profiting from their price decline. Not surprisingly, managers should consider the cost and ... Read More

Litigation can be a costly process for firms. As such, the question of how the risk of securities class action lawsuits affects corporate decisions has drawn a great amount of research interest in accounting and finance literature. To measure ex ante litigation risk, previous studies have generally used industry membership, either alone or in conjunction ... Read More