We study the decisions of international asset managers to outsource portfolio management of their funds and we link these decisions to market integration. Using a structural model of selfselection, we endogenize the decision to outsource in a comprehensive sample of international mutual funds...

According to conventional wisdom, family ownership, which signals a lack of social capital and trust in an economy, may impede innovation. This argument, however, fails to recognize that modern family firms can benefit from capitalist institutions that promote innovation. Using a comprehensive...

We study the link between a firm's quality of governance and its alliance activity. We consider alliances as a commitment technology that helps a company’ Chief Executive Officer overcome agency problems that relate to the inability to ex ante motivate division managers. We show that...

We examine the effect of the bond capital supply uncertainty of institutional investors (e.g., mutual bond funds and insurance companies) on the leverage of the firm using a novel data set. Our main finding is that the supply uncertainty of the firm's bond investor base — measured as (i) the...

We study rights offerings using a sample of 8,238 rights offers announced during 1995-2008 in 69 countries. Although shareholders prefer having the option to trade rights, issuers deliberately restrict tradability in 38% of the offerings. We argue that firms restrict rights trading to avoid the...

We examine international bond issues by US firms to study the benefits of investor taste for cross-border security issuances. We proxy for firms' international investor taste with the fraction of prior international bond holding in firms' domestic and international bonds and find that...

We study holdings in M&A targets by financial conglomerates which affiliated investment banks advise the bidders. We show that advisors take positions in the targets before M&A announcements. These stakes are positively related to the probability of observing the bid and to the target premium....

We examine how shareholder investment horizons influence firms’ payout decisions. We find that US firms held by short-term institutional investors have a higher propensity to buybacks shares instead of using dividends. Firm managers seem to respond to the preferred payout policy of investors...

We study IPOs by focusing on the degree of portfolio diversification of the shareholders taking the company public. We argue that a less diversified shareholder has more to gain from taking the company public and would be more willing to accept a lower price for the sale of its shares, i.e....

This Paper investigates the impact of ownership patterns on the way the firm is monitored, on the liquidity of its shares, and on its stock price. Building on the literature showing that local mutual funds (funds holding geographically close firms) enjoy superior returns due to private...