I hypothesize that highly innovative firms — those with high risk, yet higher potential return — will be more likely to raise funds through stock markets than through bond issuance. Using the Schumpeterian innovation life-cycle as a theoretical framework, I argue that that in the beginning,...

We study a setting wherein a divisional manager undertakes personally costly effort to improve the profitability of an investment project. The manager's choice of innovation effort is subject to a holdup problem because of the ex post opportunism on the part of headquarters. We analyze and...

This paper investigates the effect of superstar CEOs on their competitors. Exploiting shocks to CEO status due to prestigious media awards, we document a significant positive stock market performance of competitors of superstar CEOs subsequent to the award. The effect is more pronounced for...

Corporate innovation is an increasingly important topic that has attracted great attention from academic researchers in financial economics in recent years. Although the top three finance journals (i.e. the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial...

Prior research suggests that executive option grants that do not quickly vest provide managers with better incentives to pursue long-term, rather than short-term, objectives. Previous research also suggests that the pursuit of long-term objectives may be undermined by the risk of early...

Using data on anti-takeover provisions (ATPs) and top management characteristics hand-collected from IPO prospectuses, we analyze the effect of the pre-IPO innovativeness and the top management quality of private firms on the number and strength of ATPs in IPO firm charters. We test the...

Public equity is an important source of risk capital, especially in China. The Chinese government has occasionally suspended IPOs, exposing firms already approved to IPO to indeterminate listing delays. The temporary bar on going public increases uncertainty about access to public markets for...

This paper investigates the effects of going public on innovation by comparing the innovative activity of firms that went public with firms that withdrew their IPO filing and remained private. NASDAQ fluctuations during the book-building phase are used as an instrument for IPO completion. Using...

This study investigates why newly listed firms become M&A targets shortly after their initial public offering (IPOs) from the perspective of product innovation. We find strong empirical evidence that IPOs with less established trademarks increase the likelihood of becoming IPO targets. We also...