We examine how shareholder investment horizons influence firms' payout decisions. We find that U.S. firms held by short-term institutional investors have a higher propensity to buybacks shares instead of using dividends. Firm managers seem to respond to the preferred payout policy of investors...

We investigate whether mutual fund families strategically allocate performance across their member funds favoring those more likely to generate higher fee income or future inflows. We find evidence of strategic cross-fund subsidization of 'high family value' funds (i.e. high fees or high past...

We investigate whether mutual fund families strategically transfer performance across member funds to favor those more likely to increase overall family profits. We find that 'High family value' funds (i.e. high fees or high past performers) over-perform at the expense of 'Low value' funds. Such...

This paper investigates how the investment horizon of a firm's institutional shareholders impacts the market for corporate control. We find that target firms with short-term shareholders are more likely to receive an acquisition bid but get lower premiums. This effect is robust and economically...

We study the impact on industry liquidity of delistings resulting from leveraged buyout activity. Using data on U.S. LBOs during the 1985-2008 period, we uncover evidence of negative liquidity externalities. We find that the liquidity of firms in the same industry as the LBO target drops during...

An increasing fraction of M&A deals are announced on the same day in which the bidder reports its quarterly earnings, a phenomenon we call ‘bundled' announcements. Compared to other bids, bundled bids are associated with strongly lower bidder announcement returns. We investigate possible...

This paper proposes a firm-level measure of exposure to the digital economy. Using a purpose-built digital economy vocabulary, we compute its similarity to 10-K business descriptions and conference call transcripts of U.S. nonfinancial firms. Digital exposure has increased over time. Top...

The fastest growing segment of private equity deals are secondary buyouts - sales from one PE fund to another. Using a comprehensive sample of leveraged buyouts we investigate whether SBOs are value-maximizing, or reflect opportunistic behavior. To proxy for adverse incentives, we develop buy...