• with Martin Jacob, Gaizka Ormazabal, and Robert Raney 

• Latest Draft: January 2025

This paper examines the pricing of ESG (i.e., environmental, social, and governance) in product markets. Price effects may be demand-driven, reflecting consumers' willingness to pay for ESG outcomes, or supply-driven, as firms pass ESG-related costs onto consumers. For identification, we focus on ESG-related incidents in the airline industry, which offers comprehensive public data on consumer prices. We observe that airlines increase ticket prices following ESG incidents. The price reaction is more pronounced when customers are less elastic, airlines are more elastic, or the demand-side effect is weaker. Collectively, our results show that consumers (at least partly) pay for the ESG initiatives and that ESG-related price increases cannot be fully explained by consumer demand for better environmental or social outcomes. 

• with Eliezer Fich, Johanna Kling, and Barbara Stage 

• Latest Draft: November 2024

• Media Coverage: The CLS Blue Sky Blog

We examine the impact of rules limiting the tax deductibility of interest expenses on merger and acquisition (M&A) investments. These rules aim to curb excessive debt financing and debt-shifting incentives. However, debt is crucial for cash-financed M&A deals. Using data from 43 countries, we find that interest expense limitation rules are associated with reduced M&A activity. M&A transactions completed after these rules take effect exhibit lower deal values and inferior quality. This evidence highlights the unintended consequences of anti-tax avoidance regulations, supporting the hypothesis that by increasing the cost of debt financing, these regulations distort resource allocation in the economy.

• with Sebastian Firk, and Jan Christoph Hennig

• Latest Draft: September 2024

The demand for actively considering the interests of multiple stakeholder groups in corporate decision-making has notably intensified. This shift toward a multistakeholder perspective assigns CEOs a crucial role, challenging them to balance partially competing interests effectively. Despite growing interest among accounting scholars in “CEO effects,” our understanding remains limited regarding which specific traits may predict a particularly diligent balancing of multistakeholder interests. In this study, we propose that CEOs with higher conscientiousness—one of the five fundamental personality traits—exhibit an idiosyncratic tendency to carefully balance the interests of various stakeholder groups because they exhibit a strong sense of responsibility and fairness. Our empirical examination focuses on tax avoidance, an area where corporate stakeholder interests often diverge from broader societal interests. Using data from CEO appointments at S&P 1500 firms, we find that CEO conscientiousness is associated with less tax avoidance. Our results further indicate that situational cues that trigger a more salient societal interest in tax payments amplify the negative association between CEO conscientiousness and tax avoidance. Conversely, cues emphasizing the salience of corporate stakeholder interests in minimizing taxes weaken this association. Overall, our findings suggest that variations in a fundamental CEO personality trait can help in understanding the extent to which CEOs integrate competing stakeholder interests into their decision-making processes.

• with Andreas Oestreicher