We model the dynamics of going public within an IPO wave. The model predicts that firms with better growth opportunities can find it optimal to go public early and accept underpricing of their issues to signal quality. Data supports this prediction as, on average, early movers underprice their...

This paper investigates the role of stakeholder preference on corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that Indian firms increase CSR expenses when trade restrictions (Antidumping) are initiated against competing Chinese exports from countries with a high stakeholder preference for CSR....

Leverage affects a firm's liquidation decision and may therefore affect the value of relation-specific investments made by the firm's stakeholders (Titman, 1984). As a result, firms may want to maintain lower debt ratios if stakeholder relationships are especially important. We compile a...

Using an administrative dataset covering 2 million job loss events we analyze the impact of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on spending from 2008 to 2020. We find that during the Great Recession spending cuts after job loss were deeper than in the subsequent expansion, but in the COVID-19...

We show that information complementarities play an important role in the spillover of transparency shocks. We exploit staggered revelation of financial misconduct by S&P500 firms and find that the implied cost of capital increases for “close” industry peers relative to “distant” peers....

We document heterogeneity in the evolution of income growth since the Great Recession. Using administrative data on the incomes of over 7 million households, we estimate the extent to which lower-income households began to catch-up with higher earners in two distinct phases: first, as the labor...

We show that influential stakeholders can distort corporate policies when they cannot commit to a long-term relationship. Following the revelation of financial fraud by a major customer, suppliers surprisingly outperform a control group in terms of sales growth, Tobin’s Q and survival...