I study the effect of a threat of hedge fund activism on corporate investment. I find that managers are less likely to undertake acquisitions when subject to a higher threat of activism. They decrease the number of risky, value-creating acquisitions undertaken by the firm. I present evidence...

Secondary buyouts (SBOs) represent more than 50 percent of all buyouts in 2018. Even though general partners argue that SBOs are less attractive investment targets for buyouts and some empirical indication against an outperformance of SBOs exists, the share of SBOs continuously increases....

In an "activist risk arbitrage," a shareholder attempts to reshape an announced M&A through public campaigns, profi ting from improved terms. Activists target deals with low premiums, and those susceptible to managerial conflicts of interest, including going-private deals and deals upon which...

This paper studies the long-term effect of hedge fund activism on the productivity of target firms using plant-level information from the U.S. Census Bureau. A typical target firm improves its production efficiency in the three years after an activist intervention, and the improvements are most...

Using a sample of 18,225 global buyouts, we find that management buyouts (MBOs) are significantly more likely to occur if economic policy uncertainty (EPU) increases. This finding is consistent with the idea that EPU provides an opportunity for insiders to capitalize on private information and...

This paper studies the long-term effect of hedge fund activism on the productivity of target firms using plant-level information from the U.S. Census Bureau. A typical target firm improves its production efficiency within two years after activism, and this improvement is concentrated in...

Optimal risk sharing in financial markets requires investors with high risk-bearing capacity to hold relatively large stakes. But holding large stakes might incentivize such investors to expend resources in monitoring the firm, a public good. Does this dissuade them from acquiring large stakes?...

Many pension funds have a mismatch between assets and liabilities, taking more risks than securing liabilities implies. This puts fixed claims of retirees at risk. For the cases with and without macro-risk, this paper analyses the implications of this asset-liability mismatch for welfare,...

This paper documents the role of capital markets in financing nonfinancial French firms since the adoption of the euro and analyzes its implications for risk using a structural model of credit risk. The analysis suggests that market financing has played a more important role in financing French...

This paper examines the effects of firm-level common ownership on the level and efficiency of investment when firms face uncertainty. There is a current debate about the costs and benefits of common ownership, whereby a firm owns large stakes in multiple companies in the same industry. Critics...