This paper empirically analyses the effect of foreign block acquisitions on the U.S. target firms' credit risk as captured by their CDS. The involvement of foreign investors leads to a significant increase in the target firms' CDS spreads. This effect is stronger when foreign owners are...

We exploit cross-sectional variation in the predictable changes in asset volatility following corporate acquisitions to identify the effect of business risk on capital structure. We find that post-merger changes in leverage and cash holdings are strongly predicted by expected asset volatility...

We study both theoretically and empirically option prices on firms undergoing a cash merger offer. To estimate the merger's success probability, we use a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method using a state space representation of our model. Our estimated probability measure has significant...

The M&A transactions represent a wide range of unique business optimization opportunities in the corporate transformation deals, which are usually characterized by the high level of total risk. The M&A transactions can be successfully implemented by taking to an account the size of investments,...

Existing research shows that bidder default risk increases following acquisitions due to a rise in post-acquisition leverage and managerial risk-taking actions offsetting the potential for asset diversification. This study examines whether the risk effects of acquiring distressed targets are...

Prior research suggests that ETF arbitrage affects the market quality of underlying securities. We directly test this proposition by examining minute-by-minute returns and order imbalances, but find little evidence that trading in ETFs impacts the underlying. Panel vector autoregression shows...

We show that mutual funds contribute to cross-sectional momentum and excess volatility through positive feedback trading. Stocks held by positive feedback funds exhibit much stronger momentum, almost doubling the returns from a simple momentum strategy. This “enhanced” momentum is robust to...

In their seminal Journal of Finance article, Miller, Muthuswamy, and Whaley (MMW) [1994] document that the observed mean reversion of changes in the basis of cash and stock index futures prices is likely illusory. MMW use a simple time-series model to suggest that the apparent mean-reversion in...

A growing literature uses the Russell 1000/2000 reconstitution event as an identification strategy to investigate corporate finance and asset pricing questions. To implement this identification strategy, researchers need to approximate the ranking variable used to assign stocks to indexes. We...