The debate over whether dual class of shares increases or decreases share value, should be prohibited or not, should be subjected to mandatory sunset provisions, and so on has been heating up over the last few years. This paper reviews the pros and cons of dual class of shares in light of more...

We revisit the research question centering around the impact of the market for corporate control on stock price crash risk. Using a newly-developed takeover index from Cain, McKeon, and Solomon (2017) that comprehensively considers existing state takeover laws, federal statutes, and state court...

This paper studies the market-level effects of litigation rights in an imperfectly competitive capital market with a market maker, an information-acquiring investor, and liquidity traders. Litigation rights have the following equilibrium effects. (i) The investor acquires more private...

Within the discussion about an efficient corporate governance system, considerable attention has been paid to the supervisory board's responsibility to monitor top executives raising the question about the value relevance of supervisory board's actions (i.e., control). We conduct an event study...

The manner in which hostile takeovers have historically been executed has just begun to receive serious academic attention. Similarly, while the literature on the accuracy and determinants of share prices is voluminous, there has been little systematic historical analysis of when and how modern...

This paper employs a natural experiment research design to analyze the differences in the effects of the 2002 notice concerning private securities litigation issued by the Supreme People's Court on stock price performance in A/B-share markets. Using a sample of 162 twin A/B-shares issued by 81...

We study the economic consequences of a recent securities regulation that grants U.S. regulators broad new powers to revise or reject foreign acquisitions of firms deemed critical to U.S. national security. Our results document an important tradeoff between U.S. national security and shareholder...

We document pervasive informed trading activity in equity options before M&A announcements. About 25% of takeovers have positive abnormal volumes. These volume patterns indicate that informed traders are likely using bullish directional strategies for the target and volatility strategies for the...

Governance has many dimensions – corporate governance pertains to the firm's management whilst sovereign governance pertains to the firm's exposure to sovereign risk, corruption, and poor regulation. We show that both are important drivers of firm value and this has serious implications for...

Whereas the agency theory predicts that dual-class shares decrease firm performance, the stewardship theory predicts that dual-class shares increase firm performance. The cumulative findings on the performance consequences of dual-class shares have been weak and/or inconclusive. Because...