Managers often claim that an important source of value in acquisitions is the acquiring firm's ability to finance investments for the target firm. This claim implies that targets are financially constrained prior to being acquired and that these constraints are eased following the acquisition....

Managers often claim that an important source of value in acquisitions is the acquiring firm's ability to finance investments for the target firm. This claim implies that targets are financially constrained prior to being acquired and that these constraints are eased following the acquisition....

Using a sample of control cross-border acquisitions from 56 countries from 1990 to 2007, we find that acquirers from better governed countries gain more from such acquisitions and their gains are higher when targets are from worse governed countries. Other acquirer country characteristics,...

Using an index which increases as a firm adopts more governance attributes, we find that 12.7% of foreign firms have a higher index than matching U.S. firms. The best predictor for whether a foreign firm adopts more governance attributes than a comparable U.S. firm is whether the firm comes from...

We compare the governance of foreign firms to the governance of similar U.S. firms. Using an index of firm governance attributes, we find that, on average, foreign firms have worse governance than matching U.S. firms. Roughly 8% of foreign firms have better governance than comparable U.S. firms....

Behavioral finance models imply that an increase in shares outstanding leads to a lower stock price for firms with greater diversity in opinion among investors. Information asymmetry models imply that share issues by firms with greater information asymmetries are accompanied by larger share...

Economic theory, as well as commonly-stated views of practitioners, suggests that market downturns can affect both the ability and manner in which firms raise external financing. Theory suggests that downturns should be associated with a shift toward less information-sensitive securities, as...

We construct a firm-level governance index that increases with minority shareholder protection. Compared to U.S. matching firms, only 12.68% of foreign firms have a higher index. The value of foreign firms falls as their index decreases relative to the index of matching U.S. firms. Our results...

Acquiring-firm shareholders lost 12 cents at the announcement of acquisitions for every dollar spent on acquisitions for a total loss of $240 billion from 1998 through 2001, whereas they lost $7 billion in all of the 1980s, or 1.6 cents per dollar spent. Though the announcement losses to...

We examine a sample of 12,023 acquisitions by public firms from 1980 to 2001. Shareholders of these firms lost a total of $218 billion when acquisitions were announced. Though shareholders lose throughout our sample period, losses associated with acquisition announcements after 1997 are...