The limited body of empirical research concerning the proxy contest provides little evidence that shareholders have suffered material equity losses. In addition, the inferences derived by prior researchers examine narrow time periods and provide analysis devoid of a long-term perspective of this...

The first essay examines the determinants of returns for bidding firms' stocks in mergers and tender offers using cross-sectional micro-firm data. First, we find that potential overpayments to target shareholders are important for explaining cross-sectional differences in bidders' returns upon...