Studies have shown that firm asset growth predicts cross-sectional stock returns. Firms that shrink their assets earn superior returns while firms that substantially expand their assets incur poor returns in the following years. I show that the negative asset growth often implies poor operating...

This paper develops and tests a new theoretical explanation for why a firm conducts open-market and privately-negotiated stock repurchases. Investors may disagree with the manager about the firm's investment projects. A repurchase causes a change in the investor base as investors who are more...

Political influence on bank credit allocation is often viewed as being necessary to address social problems like income inequality. We hypothesize that such influence affects bank governance and elicits bank capital responses. Our hypothesis yields three testable predictions, for which we find...

This paper develops and tests a new theoretical explanation for why a firm conducts open-market stock repurchases. Investors may disagree with the manager about the firm's investment projects. A repurchase causes a change in the investor base as investors who are more likely to disagree with the...