In the 1980s, stock exchanges and eventually the SEC took actions that affected the eligibility of listed firms to adopt dual-class shares with differential voting rights. We find that risk-adjusted stock returns increase (decrease) in reaction to regulatory events that decrease (increase) the...

We argue that management sells assets when doing so provides the cheapest funds to pursue its objectives rather than for operating efficiency reasons alone. This hypothesis suggests that (1) firms selling assets have high leverage and/or poor performance, (2) a successful asset sale is good news...