Using a unique and rich database of high-technology firms in China, we show that effective enforcement of intellectual property rights at the provincial level is critical in encouraging financing and investing in R&D. Better enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights positively affects...

We provide direct empirical evidence that share overvaluation is an important motive for firms to make stock acquisitions. We find that more overvalued firms are more likely to acquire with stock, and acquirers are more overvalued in successful stock mergers than in withdrawn mergers. Acquirers'...

Market efficiency improves for stocks that are listed on the newly established single stock futures (SSF) exchanges. After identifying information associated with large price changes, we show that the number of unexplained large stock returns decreases for SSF firms in comparison to the pre-SSF...

We provide direct empirical evidence that stocks' overvaluation is an important motive for firms to make acquisitions with their stocks, supporting the market driven acquisition theory (Shleifer and Vishny, 2002). Overvaluation increases the probability of firms becoming acquirers and the...

Financing of and investing in Ramp;D are prone to risks of appropriation by competitors, information asymmetry, and agency problems. Although legal protection of intellectual property (IP) rights at the national level is necessary to encourage investing in Ramp;D, we show that the effective...