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We find that corporate giving as a private benefit of control distorts investment and financing decisions, results supporting Jensen’s (1986) free cash flow theory. These investment distortions reduce shareholder wealth, especially in cash-...Read more
Mergers and acquisitions are often motivated by the intention of creating value from intangible assets. We develop a novel word list of intangibles and apply it to takeover announcements. Deals presented with more “intangibles talk” complete more...Read more
We investigate the impact of hedge fund activism on corporate transaction markets. We find that activism targets as well as firms exposed to hedge fund threats increase divestitures and receive more merger bids. On balance, they also make fewer...Read more
We study a wide-spread yet unexplored corporate governance phenomenon: the pledging of company stock by insiders as collateral for personal bank loans. Utilizing a regulatory change that exogenously decreases pledging, we document a negative...Read more