Traditional finance theory suggests that riskier investments should yield higher returns. Challenging this notion, anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that highly-incented managers may take on excessive risk, leading to greater losses, while other theoretical research argues that high...

We survey more than 200 private equity (PE) managers from firms with $1.9 trillion of assets under management (AUM) about their portfolio performance, decision-making and activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that PE managers have significant incentives to maximize value, their actions...

Eaton Corporation, a diversified industrial conglomerate, had been changing its strategic focus and re-configuring its portfolio of businesses for the past 15 years. Through more than 70 acquisitions and 50 divestitures, Eaton had narrowed its strategic focus considerably and was now pursuing a...

We develop an analytical framework that divides the contribution of pension risk to the total systematic risk of the firm into two parts: (1) the risk due to the investment strategy of the pension plan (“Mismatch Risk”); and (2) the risk due to the funded status of the pension plan...

Recent empirical evidence suggests that US industrial firms invest heavily in noncash, risky financial assets. Using hand-collected data on financial portfolios of German firms, we show that risky asset holdings are not an anomaly unique to the US. We find that industrial firms in Germany invest...

A direct relationship between the observed investment beliefs held by pension funds and performance measures is tested using an international sample of pension funds. Investment beliefs address strategic choices in the investment philosophy and process that affect the future performance of the...

Based on theoretical advice and empirical evidence suggesting that risk-taking in asset allocation enhances pension returns, we evaluate empirically whether good corporate governance leads to a larger allocation of pension assets to risky securities as compared to safe investments. Our findings...

I propose a tractable model integrating dynamic internal capital allocation with imperfect patent protection, thereby endogenizing patent war as well as financing constraints. I emphasize the central importance of capital intangibility for corporate decisions when intangibles are insecure. The...

I explore an intricate interaction between a firm’s risk exposure, intangible capital accumulation, and physical capital accumulation by using a unified dynamic investment model of capital allocation. The model emphasizes both the importance of the marginal value of the intangible capital and...

This paper examines the propensity of firms to comove in investment decisions. Although stock return comovement and herding among investors received considerable attention in existing work, little is known about correlated investment behavior of firms. After controlling for the similarity of...