Agency problems are an important determinant of corporate liquidity. For a sample of more than 11,000 firms from 45 countries, we find that corporations in countries where shareholders rights are not well protected hold up to twice as much cash as corporations in countries with good shareholder...

This study examines the motivations for and empirical performance of roll-up transactions, a special class of initial public equity offering where multiple small business entities are consolidated into a single publicly traded company. Using a sample of 47 deals initiated between 1994 and 1998,...

This paper investigates how firms determine the capital structure of a subsidiary that is divested in a spin-off. In a spin-off, the parent divides the assets of the firm and chooses the capital structure for the new, stand-alone entity. Unlike the firms in other capital structure studies, the...

We develop and test a new theory of security issuance that is consistent with the puzzling stylized fact that firms issue equity when their stock prices are high. The theory also generates new predictions. Our theory predicts that managers use equity to finance projects when they believe that...

We investigate how corporate governance impacts firm value by comparing the value and use of cash holdings in poorly and well governed firms. We show that governance has a substantial impact on value through its impact on cash: $1.00 of cash in a poorly governed firm is valued at only $0.42 to...

This paper investigates how firms determine the capital structure of a subsidiary that is divested in a spin-off. In a spin-off, the parent divides the assets of the firm and chooses the capital structure for the new, stand-alone entity. Unlike the firms in other capital structure studies, the...

In this paper, I investigate the relations between stock repurchases and distribution, investment, capital structure, corporate control, and compensation policies over the 1977-96 period. I allow the significance of each motive to change over time to account for adjustments in the percentage of...

The use of stock repurchases increased dramatically in the mid 1980s and declined in the early 1990s. In this paper, I investigate why this fluctuation occurred by examining the changes in firms' motives for repurchasing stock over the period of 1977 to 1993. I find that the increased use of...

The likelihood of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) jumps discontinuously when the stock price equals the most recent equity offer price. Anchoring on the last offer price holds after considering executive turnovers, stock splits, earnings management, or dividend adjustments. Using a fuzzy...

Little is known about the price firms pay for stock repurchases. Using a dataset of all U.S. repurchases from 2004 to 2011, we compare the actual average price paid monthly in a repurchase to the average market price for the same stock over various horizons. We find that firms repurchase stock...