This paper proposes that the extent to which mutual fund managers’ beliefs deviate from the ex ante unobservable representative beliefs of their peers contains information about their skill. A new measure based on portfolio allocations, peer deviation, is used to capture a fund manager’s...

Whether financial returns to university licensing divert faculty from basic research is examined in a life cycle context. As in traditional life cycle models, faculty devote more time to research, which can be either basic or applied, early and more time to leisure as they age. Licensing has...

Using a sample of over 800 cross-border acquisitions during 1991–2004, we find that, contrary to general perception, cross-border acquisitions perform better in the long run if the acquirer and the target come from countries that are culturally more disparate. We use mainly the Hofstede...

We examine 245 international firms making initial public offerings (IPOs) in the United States between 1991 and 1999, and compare their underwriting fees and indirect costs of underpricing to the IPOs of domestic US issuers. Our results indicate that foreign IPOs experience approximately the...

In 1990, the SEC approved Rule 144A, a reform permitting firms to raise capital from "qualified institutional buyers" without requiring registration of the securities and compliance with U.S. GAAP. The rule was intended to help international firms reduce the costs of meeting U.S. disclosure...

This article investigates two aspects of dividend tax avoidance not addressed by prior research. First, it examines the aggregate dividend tax savings provided to individuals through tax-exempt and tax-deferred accumulators. Using the Internal Revenue Service Individual Income Tax Model, it then...

This article examines both the shareholder wealth effects of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) announced by firms subject to takeover pressure and the takeover incidence of targets with and without ESOPs. Although we do not find that defensive ESOPs significantly reduce shareholder wealth...