We explore three ways to classify mutual funds as ESG-oriented: by their names, their voting records, and their holdings. ESG-named funds and ESG-voting funds tend to be smaller than non-ESG funds, and spread their investment over more individual companies. They never control more than a quarter...

We show that U.S. industrial firms invest heavily in non-cash, risky financial assets such as corporate debt, equity, and mortgage-backed securities. Risky assets represent 40% of firms' financial portfolios, or 6% of total book assets. We present a formal model to assess the optimality of risky...

I study how fund families’ simultaneous debt and equity holdings affect risk shifting by portfolio firms. Families generate more income from debt in one-third of their dual holding positions; I argue their equity in those positions is captured. Firms with more captured dual holders exhibit...

In 21st century education system, Information Technology is playing a vital role. IT has simplified the teaching-learning process in the higher education. Today, Educators worldwide are employing IT as one of the tools for the knowledge transmission. My paper "Blog: Help Engineers Practice...

Sales commissions may present a conflict of interest that allows investment advisers to obtain rents from uninformed clients. Alternatively, commissions might be a contracting solution to motivate information provision. To analyze the relation between commissions and adviser misconduct, I...

This paper investigates whether corporate political influence affects government investment decisions. We study the efficacy of the various forms of political influence, ranging from the relatively passive connections between firms and politicians, such as those based on politicians’ voting...

Using hand-collected data on divisional managers at the S&P 500 firms, we provide one of the first studies of their role in internal capital budgeting. Divisional managers with connections to the CEO receive more capital. Managers’ informal connections, such as social ties to the CEO, outweigh...

We study the effect of government assistance on bank risk taking. Using hand-collected data on bank applications for government investment funds, we investigate the effect of both application approvals and denials. To distinguish banks? risk taking behavior from changes in economic conditions,...