This paper examines the link between disclosure and the cost of capital. We exploit an exogenous cost of capital shock created by the Enron scandal in Fall 2001 and analyze firms' disclosure responses to this shock. These tests are opposite to the typical research design that analyzes cost of...

This paper is the first to study the effect of financial restatement on bank loan contracting. Compared with loans initiated before restatement, loans initiated after restatement have significantly higher spreads, shorter maturities, higher likelihood of being secured, and more covenant...

This paper measures the risk-adjusted performance of US buyouts. It draws on a unique and proprietary set of data on 133 US buyouts between 1984 and 2004. For each of them we determine a public market equivalent that matches it with respect to its timing and its systematic risk. After a...

Firms hold liquid assets to enhance their ability to invest efficiently when external financing costs are high, especially during poor macroeconomic conditions. Using a sample of 47,378 acquisitions from 36 countries between 1997 and 2014, we study how the relation between firms' cash holdings...

This paper examines whether, and how, leveraged buyouts from the most recent wave of public to private transactions created value. For a sample of 192 buyouts completed between 1990 and 2006, we show that these deals are somewhat more conservatively priced and lower levered than their...

This paper examines the effect of geographic and industrial diversification on firm value for a sample of over 20,000 firm-year observations of U.S. corporations from 1987-1993. Our" multivariate tests indicate the average value of a firm with international operations is 2.2% higher than...

Buyout booms form in response to declines in the aggregate risk premium. We document that the equity risk premium is the primary determinant of buyout activity rather than credit-specific conditions. We articulate a simple explanation for this phenomenon: a low risk premium increases the present...

This paper introduces the impact of debt misvaluation on merger and acquisition activity. Debt misvaluation helps explain the shifting dominance of financial acquirers (private equity firms) relative to strategic acquirers (operating companies). The effects of overvalued debt might seem limited...