Using the regression discontinuity design of close gubernatorial elections in the U.S., we identify a significant and positive impact of the social networks of corporate directors and politicians on firm value. Firms connected to elected governors increase their value by 3.89%. Political...

We study the stock price response to announcements of share purchases by corporate insiders over the period 1994 through 1999. The cross-sectional variability in the response is consistent with a curvilinear relation between firm value and insider ownership, where the value of the firm first...

This paper studies the hiring and firing decisions of firms and their effects on firm value. This is done in an environment where the productivity of workers depends on how well they match with their co-workers and the firm acts as a coordinating device. Match quality derives from a production...

Which investment model best fits firm-level data? To answer this question we estimate alternative models using Compustat data. Surprisingly, the two best-performing specifications are based on Hayashi's (1982) model. This model's foremost implication, that Q is a sufficient statistic for...

Using firm-level data, we provide evidence that, although monetary policy affects real investment, the effect operates differentially: the greater its export intensity the less a firm is affected by tight money. We examine several interpretations and conclude that the impact is transmitted...

The best predictor of current investment at the firm level is lagged investment. This lagged-investment effect is empirically more important than the cash-flow and Q effects combined. We show that the specification of investment adjustment costs proposed by Christiano, Eichenbaum and Evans...

We construct an equilibrium model of firm diversification to show that the main empirical findings about firm diversification and performance are consistent with the maximization of shareholder value. In our model, diversification allows a firm to explore better productive opportunities while...

This paper has two purposes. It introduces a direct approach to policy analysis in endogenous growth models - the q-theory approach - and uses this to illustrate several new openness-and-growth links that appear when we enrich the economic content of the early trade and growth models. The...

We evaluate the impact of firm-level corporate governance provisions on the valuation of firms in a large cross-section of countries. Unlike previous work, we distinguish between governance provisions that are set at the country-level and those that are adopted at the firm-level. We find that...

The creation of Europe’s ‘new’ stock markets represents a major experiment in market design with important implications for the ability to support innovative, fast-growing companies. We evaluate the success of these markets based on a large number of measures of firm performance and...