This paper studies the long-term effects of redlining policies that restricted access to credit in urban communities. For empirical identification, we use a regression discontinuity design that exploits boundaries from maps created by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in 1940. We find that...

We analyze whether the growing importance of passive investors has influenced the campaigns, tactics, and successes of activists. We find activists are more likely to pursue changes to corporate control or influence (e.g., via board representation) and to forego more incremental changes to...

Passive institutional investors are an increasingly important component of U.S. stock ownership. To examine whether and by which mechanisms passive investors influence firms' governance, we exploit variation in ownership by passive mutual funds associated with stock assignments to the Russell...

We analyze whether the growing importance of passive investors has influenced the campaigns, tactics, and successes of activists. We find activists are more likely to seek board representation when a larger share of the target company's stock is held by passively managed mutual funds....

I examine the effect of shareholder litigation rights on the governance of firms. My empirical strategy exploits the staggered adoption of universal demand (UD) laws, which restrict lawsuits alleging a breach of fiduciary duty by directors or officers. UD is associated with an increase in the...

We examine the role of strategic communication in public short selling campaigns by hedge funds. Such campaigns are associated with abnormal returns for targets of approximately -7% as well as changes in the behavior of stakeholders (e.g., other short sellers). The effects are driven by...

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations ("DAOs'') are crypto-native organizations run without centralized management. Instead, managerial and financial decisions are made by token holders via a decentralized voting process. Taking advantage of the transparency of blockchains, we gather data on...

We find that the bans on covered short sales, implemented in several countries during the financial crisis of 2008-09 improved market liquidity or at least had a neutral impact; a result we argue could be expected in theory, given a simple variation on the Diamond-Verrechia (1987) model. The...

Blockchain technology has facilitated the emergence of a new type of organizational form, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). In contrast to corporations and other types of business organizations, DAOs do not have managers or directors with formal decision rights. Instead, the members...