In markets with quality unobservable to buyers, third-party certification is often the only instrument to increase transparency. While both sellers and buyers have a demand for certification, its role differs fundamentally: sellers use it for signaling, buyers use it for inspection. Seller...

This paper provides evidence of deliberate private-information disclosure within banks’ international business networks. Using supervisory trade-level data, we show that banks with closer ties to a target advisor in a takeover buy more stocks of the target firm prior to the deal announcement,...