We show that CEOs exhibit a hometown bias in acquisitions. Firms are over twice as likely to acquire targets located in the states of their CEOs' childhood homes than similar targets domiciled elsewhere. Small, private home-state deals underperform other small, private deals, and the bias is...

We document that a firm's culture — specifically, its religiosity — affects its cost of debt. Firms in higher-religiosity counties have higher credit ratings and lower debt costs. The impact of religiosity is stronger for firms with greater information asymmetry and during recessions....

We posit that IPOs of local companies will lead to increased stock market participation. First, local IPOs attract attention to the market, through both increased information production and publicity. Second, local IPOs generate wealth, not just for people associated with the heretofore private...

We examine whether climate-change risk affects firms' cost of capital when firms canadapt to the risk. We find firms' cost of long-term loans increases with sea level rise(SLR) risk, but this effect mainly holds among firms with high adjustment costs to therisk, i.e., firms for whom it is hard...

Beginning in 2012, private equity (PE) fund advisers must register with the SEC and disclose information regarding misconduct committed by the advisers or their affiliates. We find that the disclosure of misconduct reduces PE fund advisers’ ability to raise future funds. Among different types...

We investigate whether and how executives' social interactions affect their compensation. Using the social networks among 2,936 chief executive officers (CEOs) during 1999-2008, we report that socially connected CEOs receive significantly more similar compensation than non-connected CEOs. This...

We examine how directors with investment banking experience affect a firm's acquisition behavior. We find that the presence of investment banker directors is associated with a higher probability of subsequent acquisitions, and such positive relation is not driven by reverse causality. Focusing...