TWO ESSAYS ON FINANCIAL REPORTING QUALITY: EXAMINING MANAGERIAL PLACE ATTACHMENT AND CREDIT ACCESS

In essay 1, I investigate the association of place attachment and financial reporting quality. Management characteristics affect a wide range of corporate decisions, including decisions affecting financial reporting quality; however, the influence of managerial place attachment on corporate decision-making has received relatively little attention - even though place attachment is thought to play a significant role in forming individual identity. Place attachment affects the decisions that individuals make with regards to social and environmental policies, lifestyle, and, in the corporate context, firmlevel policies. Because firms hire local CEOs and CFOs five to eight times more often than expected if geography were irrelevant to the matching process, the question of how managerial place attachment affects financial reporting outcomes is an important one. I investigate the effect of managerial place attachment on financial reporting quality in a sample of publicly traded U.S. firms. My findings indicate that firms with place attached CEOs display higher financial reporting quality, indicating a significant caretaking bond between CEO and stakeholders. CFOs, on the other hand, are marginally associated with lower financial reporting quality, indicating that they are more likely than CEOs to extract personal gain when they are local to their firm headquarters.