This paper explores how league tables, which are rankings based on market shares, influence the M&A market. A bank's league table rank predicts its future deal flow, above and beyond other determinants of this future deal flow. This creates incentives for banks to manage their league table...

We study how managers respond to hurricane events when their firms are located in the neighborhood of the disaster area. We find that the sudden shock to the perceived liquidity risk leads managers to increase corporate cash holdings and to express more concerns about hurricane risk in...

What drives investors' attention? We study how far in advance earnings calendars are pre-announced and find that investors are more attentive to earnings news when such details are disclosed well ahead of time. This variation in investors' attention affects stock prices, thereby creating...

Labor restructuring is a key driver of takeovers and the associated synergy gains worldwide. In a difference-in-differences research design, we show that major increases in employment protection reduce takeover activity by 14-27% and the combined firm gains (synergies) by over half. Consistent...

We analyze the effect of alternative data on the informativeness of financial forecasts. Our hypothesis is that the emergence of alternative data increases the net benefit of collecting short-term information about firms' cash flows more than the benefit of collecting long-term information. If...