We find strong evidence that three key dimensions of national culture (trust, hierarchy, and individualism) affect merger volume and synergy gains. The volume of cross-border mergers is lower when countries are more culturally distant. In addition, greater cultural distance in trust and...

This paper exploits hand-collected data on illegal insider trades to test whether standard illiquidity measures can detect informed trading. Controlling for unobserved cross-sectional and time-series variation, sampling bias, and strategic timing of insider trades, I find that only absolute...

Terrorist attacks influence economic growth and individual psychology. However, identifying the direct effect of terrorism on economics and psychology is difficult because institutions also change in response to terrorist attacks. This paper controls for institutional responses to terrorist...

This paper exploits a novel hand-collected dataset to provide a comprehensive analysis of the social relationships that underlie illegal insider trading networks. I find that inside information flows through strong social ties based on family, friends, and geographic proximity. On average,...

The media has an incentive to publish sensational news. We study how this incentive affects the accuracy of media coverage in the context of merger rumors. Using a novel dataset, we find that accuracy is predicted by a journalist's experience, specialized education, and industry expertise....

Existing evidence shows that risk aversion and trust are largely determined by environmental factors. We test whether one such factor is peer influence. Using random assignment of MBA students to peer groups and predetermined survey responses of economic attitudes, we find causal evidence of...

Though common stocks are one of the most important assets in an economy, little is known about their demand curves. I estimate demand curves for 144 NYSE stocks using a unique dataset of all orders, including off-equilibrium orders, during three months in 1990-1991. Connecting asset pricing with...

We represent the economy as a network of industries connected through customer and supplier trade flows. Using this network topology, we find that stronger product market connections lead to a greater incidence of cross-industry mergers. Second, mergers propagate in waves across the network...

This paper exploits hand-collected data on illegal insider trades to provide new evidence of the ability of standard measures of illiquidity to detect informed trading. Controlling for unobserved cross-sectional and time-series variation, sampling bias, and strategic timing of insider trades, I...

In contrast to the widely held belief that targets capture the lion's share of merger gains, I document considerable variation in the division of dollar gains in mergers and find that the gains to targets are only modestly more than the gains to acquirers. I present empirical evidence in support...