This paper examines the effect of corporate diversification on firm value during periods of economic downturns. Analysis of diversified firms' valuation during recessionary periods reveals a significant increase in relative value of diversified firms. The observed improvement in the relative...

This study analyzed activism that leads to a merger or acquisition (M&A) of a firm to see its benefits for the shareholders at the target firm as well as its acquirer. It used over thirty years of data to understand the impact of the activists’ demands of strategic significance for the firms....

We establish that stock liquidity is conducive to less corporate diversification. Two potential channels are identified: the financial constraint channel and the corporate governance channel. Specifically, we find that the negative effect of liquidity on diversification is stronger among...

Using a unique database of 990 VC-backed Belgian firms, we study whether compatibility between corporate and environmental characteristics matters. We address two questions: (i) Does the interplay of company, industry, and product factors affect the expected returns of the VC-backed firms? (ii)...

We examine how the Bank of Japan’s purchase of exchange traded funds (ETFs) affects companies’ profit, innovation investment, and governance using a difference-in-differences method. The Bank of Japan has purchased ETFs tracking Nikkei 225 and TOPIX since December 2010. The results show that...

Recent studies have presented evidence of scale economies for large banks, providing a rationale for some very large banks seen worldwide. In this study, we focus on the negative side of bank size which relates to monitoring costs. In particular, we show that the relationship between size and...

Contrary to popular belief, layoff announcements do not always lead to reduced employment. Using hand-collected data on layoff announcements for S&P 500 firms, I show that 32% of layoffs announced do not lead to employment downsizing. While the market, in the short run, does not react...

This paper investigates investment behavior across public and privately held firms using a novel firm-level dataset. We use coarsened exact matching to construct a control group of firms with which we compare listed firms before and after listing in a difference-in-differences framework. The...

This paper examines the impact of the financial crisis on the value of corporate diversification in a civil law country such as Spain. The financial crisis offers a natural research experiment to test the effect of a credit-constrained environment on benefits and costs emerging from internal...

We investigate the impact of relaxing listing requirements on firms' growth around initial public offerings (IPOs). Japan experienced several deregulations of listing requirements in the late 1990s. We use a dataset that covers both public and private firms for more than 30 years, which enables...