We find that bidders are more likely to hold conference calls at merger announcements when the mergers are financed with stock and when the transactions are large. After controlling for endogeneity, we also find that conference calls are associated with more favorable market reactions to merger...

We posit that accounting conservatism could mitigate the value destruction associated with increases in cash holdings. Consistent with this conjecture, we find that the market value of an additional dollar in cash holdings increases in accounting conservatism. This result is robust to...

A firm's long-term stock returns are negatively related to past growth in housing prices in the state where the firm is located. The housing price effect is persistent, and robust to controlling for the long-term stock return reversal effect, changes in mortgage interest rates across the states,...

There is reliable evidence that managers smooth their reported earnings. If some firms manage earnings downwards (upwards) when they experience large positive (negative) earnings shocks and if investors have cognitive limits or are inattentive, then it is plausible that the post-earnings...

We find that bidders are more likely to hold conference calls at merger announcements when the mergers are financed with stock and when the transactions are large. After controlling for endogeneity, we also find that conference calls are associated with more favorable market reactions to merger...

Extant studies often assume that targets' private ownership mitigates acquirers' incentives and opportunities to finance acquisitions with inflated stocks. This view stems from the observation that, although the average stock-for-stock acquirer's merger announcement abnormal return is negative...

Prior studies suggest that investors have limited attention. Tests of the inattention hypothesis have been performed in the context of relatively small corporate events, particularly earnings announcements. Presumably, large corporate events would always attract sufficient investor attention....

We document a very strong negative association between a firm's stock returns and previous housing price growth in the state where the firm is located. This relation is a long-term phenomenon, with much stronger effects at longer horizons than at shorter horizons. For the period 1979-2002, a...