CEOs have a potential conflict of interest when their company is acquired: They can bargain to be retained by the acquirer and for private benefits rather than for a higher premium to be paid to the shareholders. We investigate the determinants of target CEO retention by the acquirer and whether...

CEOs have a conflict of interest when their company is the target of an acquisition attempt: They can bargain for private benefits, such as retention by the acquirer, rather than for a higher premium to be paid to their shareholders. We find that target CEO retention by the bidder does not...

Using a sample of control cross-border acquisitions from 56 countries from 1990 to 2007, we find that acquirers from better governed countries gain more from such acquisitions and their gains are higher when targets are from worse governed countries. Other acquirer country characteristics,...

In bad times, uncertainty is high, so that investors find it more difficult to assess the prospects of the firms they invest in. Learning models suggest that in such times investors should, everything else equal, value informative signals such as analyst forecasts and recommendations more than...

This paper investigates the dynamic relation between market-wide trading activity and returns in 46 markets. Many stock markets exhibit a strong positive relation between turnover and past returns. These findings stand up in the face of various controls for volatility, alternative definitions...

Despite the disappearance of formal barriers to international investment across countries, we find that the average home bias of U.S. investors towards the 46 countries with the largest equity markets did not fall from 1994 to 2004 when countries are equally weighted but fell when countries are...

Over the last twenty years, the consensus view of systemic risk in the financial system that emerged in response to the banking crises of the 1930s and before has lost much of its relevance. This view held that the main systemic problem is runs on solvent banks leading to bank panics. But...

Assets managed by hedge funds have grown faster over the last ten years than assets managed by mutual funds. Hedge funds and mutual funds perform the same economic function, but hedge funds are largely unregulated while mutual funds are tightly regulated. This paper compares the organization,...

This paper develops and tests a model of how country characteristics, such as legal protections for minority investors, and the level of economic and financial development, influence firms’ costs and benefits in implementing measures to improve their own governance and transparency. The model...

The average cash to assets ratio for U.S. industrial firms increases by 129% from 1980 to 2004. Because of this increase in the average cash ratio, firms at the end of the sample period can pay back all of their debt obligations with their cash holdings, so that the average firm has no leverage...