We examine the usefulness and credibility of analyst recommendations by focusing on their behavior surrounding tender offer announcements. For our 1998-2001 sample, we find analysts did not identify takeover targets through their recommendations nor did they distinguish between wealth-increasing...

Despite mixed stock returns for acquirer shareholders in large stock-for-stock mergers, acquiring-firm merger proxy votes rarely fail; in the sample we examine, the average approval rate of votes cast is 95%. Our examination of whether merger votes are effective in monitoring management’s...

Newly public companies are subject to a quot;quiet periodquot; restricting insiders and affiliated underwriters from issuing earnings forecasts and research reports regarding the firm for a specified period following the initial public offering (IPO). As soon as this quiet period ends, the...

We examine the costs to higher education employees investing in optional retirement plans (ORP). We find vast differences across states in terms of the number of providers, number of funds offered per provider, and fees. We find the same provider offering the same fund oftentimes charges...

IPO stock prices increased approximately 2.3% on the first day of secondary market trading over the period 1993 through 2003. While these aftermarket returns are accentuated during 1999 and 2000, they persist after the bubble burst and even increase as a percentage of total underpricing. We...

This paper examines price reactions to analysts' recommendations issued in the opposite direction of recent stock price movements. We find that upgrade and downgrade contrarian recommendations induce larger market reactions than non-contrarian recommendations, consistent with the view that they...

Using hand-collected biographical information on financial analysts from 1983 to 2011, we find that analysts making forecasts on firms in industries related to their pre-analyst experience have better forecast accuracy, evoke stronger market reactions to earning revisions, and are more likely to...

We examine the causal effect of unionization on firm innovation. To establish causality, we use a regression discontinuity design relying on “locally” exogenous variation generated by elections that pass or fail by a small margin of votes. Passing a union election leads to an 8.7% (12.5%)...