We analyze all hostile takeovers in the past ten years where the market capitalization of the target firm exceeded $1 billion and the identity of the financial advisor of the acquirer is known. Our analysis reveals that, in the majority of cases, at least one of the advisors for the acquirer...

There are few things more constant in life than the rise and fall of financial markets. When markets crash, however, we are forced to restore them while learning from our mistakes. In the wake of the recent subprime mortgage crisis, Congress has drastically but deservedly overhauled the...

Professors John C. Coates, IV, and R. Glenn Hubbard have prepared a study entitled, Competition and Shareholder Fees in the Mutual Fund Industry: Evidence and Implications for Policy. I will refer to it henceforth as quot;Coates-Hubbard.quot; The working paper was published in June of 2006 under...

This essay, based on the author's presentation last September to the annual meeting of the North American Securities Administration Association (NASAA), addresses several issues related to Rule 506, the most widely-used of the SEC's transactional exemptions from federal registration of...

Archegos Capital Management, at its height, had $20 billion in assets. But in the spring of 2021, in part through its use of total return swaps, Archegos sparked a $30 billion dollar sell-off that left many of the world’s largest banks footing the bill. Mitsubishi UFJ Group estimated a loss of...

European family-controlled public companies tend to perform less well in the stock market than their American counterparts. Also, while more and more investment funds that focus on family-firm opportunities are being formed in the United States, data indicates that institutional investors remain...

This is a case study of the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch merger. It is based on the article, Fiduciary Exemption for Public Necessity: Shareholder Profit, Public Good, and the Hobson's Choice during a National Crisis, 17 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 661 (2010). The case study analyzes the...

This joint report by CEPR and the Political Economy Research Institute (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) gives an estimate of $177-354 billion in revenue that could be raised by taxing financial transactions in the United States.

The recent economic turmoil has generated renewed interest in a financial transactions tax (FTT). While such a tax will be vigorously opposed by the financial industry, it offers a very attractive mechanism for raising revenue that is arguably efficiency-enhancing. Calculations based on 2000...

Although the national debate on financial transactions taxes has just begun, there have been a wide range of responses arguing that the tax is either undesirable or unenforceable, or both. This paper presents a brief response to these criticisms.