This study examines how changes in the information environment affect the informational advantage of geographically proximate agents. We find that the long-term advantage of local agents disappeared at the turn of the millennium. This is accompanied by the reduction in local bias of...

We find that a corrupt local environment amplifies the effects of financial distress. Following regional spikes in financial misconduct, credit becomes both more expensive and harder to obtain for nearby borrowers -- even those not implicated themselves. This is particularly harmful for...

Financial misconduct (FM) rates differ widely between major U.S. cities, up to a factor of three. Although spatial differences in enforcement and firm characteristics do not account for these patterns, city-level norms appear to be very important. For example, FM rates are strongly related to...

Although investors' preference for nearby investments has been widely documented in the literature, there is no apparent consensus on whether local investors have any informational advantage. Analyzing the equity holdings of a large sample of actively managed mutual funds, I find evidence...

This paper studies the effects of international coordination failure on resource allocations. Employing the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement as an experiment, we find that U.S. polluting firms increase their emissions and receive bank financing at lower costs after the sudden...

This paper examines racial preferences of shareholders in the context of corporate director elections. Focusing on director nominees receiving negative recommendations from the dominant proxy advisor ISS, we document a higher propensity of mutual fund managers to vote for such nominees who match...