This paper shows that the presence of large public pension fund shareholders particularly reduces ex ante bad acquisitions. When firms with large public pension fund presence do acquire other firms, they perform relatively better in the long-run. Other institutional investors have either the...

This paper shows that the presence of large public pension fund shareholders particularly reduces acquisitions by cash-rich and low-q firms, and by firms seeking to ``buy growth'', after controlling for ownership endogeneity, firm-level governance structure, and other firm characteristics. When...

This paper studies the drivers behind the monitoring effectiveness of institutional investors in curbing earnings management in an international setting. We identify three distinct drivers and propose two competing hypotheses: the hometown advantage hypothesis predicts that because of proximity...