We investigate how bankers use private information to help borrowers combine resources in strategic alliances. Firms that have borrowed from the same banker are significantly more likely to enter an alliance. Even indirect connections through a banker network can facilitate alliances. Consistent...

We estimate the impact of U.S. state court characteristics on firm value by exploiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that exogenously changed firms' exposure to different courts. We find that increased exposure to more business-friendly courts is associated with positive announcement returns. We...

Using data from the US syndicated loan market, we find women to be underrepresented among senior commercial bankers. This gap persists due to unequal promotion rates for men and women at the same institution in the same year, and cannot be explained by different individual or managerial...

I study a protectionist anti-takeover law introduced in 2014 that covers a subset of all firms in the economy. The law decreased affected firms' likelihood of becoming the target of a merger or acquisition and had a negative impact on shareholder value. There is no evidence that management of...

We conduct a detailed analysis of investors in successful initial coin offerings (ICOs). The average ICO has 4,700 contributors. The median participant contributes small amounts and many investors sell their tokens before the underlying product is developed. Large presale investors obtain tokens...

We estimate the impact of U.S. state court characteristics on firm value by exploiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that exogenously changed firms‘ exposure to different courts. We find that increased exposure to more business-friendly courts is associated with positive announcement returns. We...

We exploit a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on diversity of citizenship in legal disputes to estimate the contribution of the court system to firm value. In an event study, we find that an increase in state court quality from bottom to top tercile is associated with an average increase in equity...

We estimate the link between the court system and firm value by exploiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which changed firms' exposure to different courts. We find that exposure to courts which are highly ranked by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce increases firm value. The effect is driven by...