We estimate institutional investor preferences from proxy voting records. The W-NOMINATE method maps investors onto a left-right dimension based on votes for fiscal year 2012. Public pension funds and other investors on the left support a more social and environment-friendly orientation of the...

This is the first comprehensive study of mutual fund voting in proxy contests. Mutual funds tend to vote for dissident nominees at firms with weak operating and financial performance, and when dissidents are hedge funds. Notably, passive funds are more likely to support incumbent management than...

A relatively new activist investor strategy is to purchase shares in the acquirer after an M&A announcement and exercise shareholder rights to change deal terms, or even to block the deal, through public campaigns. We provide new evidence on how the strategy affects target firms and activists'...

We study events in which activist hedge funds and short sellers target the same stock using unique European data on activism and mandatory disclosures of large short positions. The presence of large short sellers is associated with a 22.6% increase in the probability of becoming an activist...