We study institutional investors' impact on going private tender offers by controlling shareholders ("freeze-out" offers) in Israel, where regulation over such offers is loose and where (consequently?) about half of the offers are rejected. In 35...Read more
The landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission asserts for the first time that corporations benefit from First Amendment protection regarding freedom of speech in the form of independent...Read more
Do informed shareholders who can influence corporate decisions improve governance? We demonstrate this may not be generally true in a model of takeovers. The model suggests that a shareholder’s ability to collect information and trade ex post may...Read more
This paper challenges the view that foreign investors lead firms to adopt a short-term orientation and forgo long-term investment. Using a comprehensive sample of publicly listed firms in 30 countries over the 2001-2010 period, we find instead...Read more
We study the link between international stock return comovements and institutional investment. We test whether the rise of institutional ownership has increased cross-country correlations and decreased cross-industry correlations. Using stock-...Read more
Most listed firms have concentrated ownership structures. However this ownership type is problematic. A clinical analysis reveals that the corporate governance in these firms in terms of liability, voice and exit faces important design problems....Read more
Hedge fund activism has increased almost hyperbolically. Some view this optimistically as a means for bridging the separation of ownership and control; others are more pessimistic, seeing mainly wealth transfers from bondholders or speculative...Read more
We show that investors with more dollar amount allocated to private equity conduct more thorough due diligence and have different investment criteria. The fraction allocated to private equity, the organization?s total asset under management, and...Read more
This paper provides evidence on the incidence, characteristics, and performance of activist engagements across countries. We find that the incidence of activism is greatest with high institutional ownership, particularly for U.S. institutions. We...Read more
Why are shareholder empowerment and activism such controversial issues in the United States today? Other common law jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, have welcomed and encouraged greater shareholder participation and engagement in...Read more
Blockholder monitoring is key to corporate governance, but blockholders large enough to exercise signi cant unilateral in uence are rare. Mechanisms that enable small blockholders to exert collective in uence are therefore important. We present a...Read more
The increasing percentage of the modern capital markets owned by passive investors – index funds and ETFs – has received extensive media and academic attention. This growing ownership concentration as well as the potential power of passive...Read more