We develop a dynamic model of investment, capital structure, leasing, and risk management based on firms' need to collateralize promises to pay with tangible assets. Both financing and risk management involve promises to pay subject to collateral constraints. Leasing is strongly collateralized...

The well-documented abnormal long-run buy-and-hold returns to firms issuing equity in initial public offerings and seasoned equity offerings, firms bidding in mergers, and firms initiating dividends can be attributed to imperfect control-firm matching. In addition to firm size and market-to-book...

The fastest growing segment of private equity (PE) deals is secondary buyouts (SBOs)—sales from one PE fund to another. Using a comprehensive sample of leveraged buyouts, we investigate whether SBOs are value-maximizing, or reflect opportunistic behavior. To proxy for adverse incentives, we...

Little is known about the price firms pay for stock repurchases. Using a data set of all U.S. repurchases from 2004 to 2011, we compare the actual average price paid monthly in a repurchase with the average market price for the same stock over various horizons. We find that firms repurchase...

We examine how the financial constraints of repurchasing firms affect their post-buyback performance. By every constraint measure we use, a set of constrained firms repurchase. They display significantly poorer post-buyback abnormal return and operating performance than unconstrained firms....

We examine financing activities of newly public firms for evidence on capital staging in the public equity market. Staging (sequential financing) can increase issuance costs but can limit costs associated with overinvestment. We find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that staging is...

This paper investigates whether investor-level taxes affect corporate payout policy decisions. We predict and find a surge of special dividends in the final months of 2010 and 2012, immediately before individual-level dividend tax rates were expected to increase. We also find evidence that...

We find an asset pricing anomaly whereby companies have positive abnormal returns in months when they are predicted to issue a dividend. Abnormal returns in predicted dividend months are high relative to other companies and relative to dividend-paying companies in months without a predicted...

This study examines the effect of technology spillovers on firms׳ cash holdings. It finds that firms facing greater technology spillovers hold higher cash balances. This effect is more pronounced among financially constrained firms and for firms that are likely to benefit more from diffused...

We document significant reductions in corporate payouts-both dividends and (to a larger extent) share repurchases-during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Payout reductions are more likely in firms with higher leverage, more valuable growth options, and lower cash balances, i.e., those more...