We find that a firm is more likely to engage in acquisitions when its private information, measured by changes in purchase obligations, predicts that future profitability will fall and thus that its shares are overvalued in the current stock market. Overvalued acquirers are as likely to pay with...

We show that a larger migrant stock from an acquiring country to a target country leads to greater deal frequency and dollar value in cross-border acquisitions after controlling for the differences in economic and financial development, regulatory environments, valuations, and cultural distance....

We connect the extensive theoretical negotiation and auction literature to real-world practice using a rich, hand-collected data set offering a comprehensive picture of high-stake merger and acquisition (M&A) negotiations for 322 deals that aggregate more than $2.4 trillion in deal value. We...

This paper examines the impact of a defined benefit (DB) pension plan freeze on the sponsoring firm's risk and risk-taking activities. Using a sample of firms declaring a hard freeze on their DB plans during the period 2002-2007, we observe an increase in total risk (standard deviation of...

The monthly volatility of IPO initial returns is substantial, fluctuates dramatically over time, and is considerably larger during "hot" IPO markets. Consistent with IPO theory, the volatility of initial returns is higher among firms whose value is more difficult to estimate, i.e., among firms...

Almost 20% of stock-swap merger bids contain collars that affect the payment received by target shareholders. I argue that a collar bid offers two sources of value to target shareholders: the basic offer premium and the value of the implicit collar options. Hypothesizing that the market should...

The monthly volatility of IPO initial returns is substantial, fluctuates dramatically over time, and is considerably larger during "hot" IPO markets. Consistent with IPO theory, the volatility of initial returns is higher for firms that are more difficult to value because of higher information...