This paper studies the role of activist investors in the M&A market. Our theory proposes that activist investors have an inherent advantage relative to bidders in pressuring entrenched incumbents to sell. As counterparties to the acquisition, bidders have a fundamental conflict of interests with...

Conventional wisdom is that diversification weakens governance by spreading an investor too thinly. We show that, when an investor owns multiple firms ("common ownership"), governance through both voice and exit can strengthen -- even if the firms are in unrelated industries. Under common...

Prior evidence suggests that managers learn indirectly from stock prices, which contain private information impounded by informed investors' trades. However, stock price is an indirect aggregate signal, which is likely to be insufficient for managerial learning. I propose that managers seek out...

This paper tests the effects of the independence and financial knowledge of directors on risk management and firm value in the gold mining industry. Our original hand-collected database on directors' financial education, accounting background, and financial experience allows us to test the...

I study the implications of economic shocks for objective and subjective CEO performance evaluation. I explore objective CEO performance evaluation using the sensitivity of CEO cash pay to earnings. To set this sensitivity, pay-setting parties draw on information about earnings, which is...

Does corporate governance structure matter for firm value? We develop a model in which the allocation of control rights between shareholders and managers (“governance structure”) affects managers' incentive to invest (strong governance tightens managerial freedom and weak governance loosens...

Using the split-share structure reform in China as a quasi-natural experiment, we examine the effect of stock liquidity on investment efficiency. Consistent with feedback and incentive theories, investment efficiency increases after the reform but only for under-investing firms. Higher stock...

One-size-fits-all recommendations are common in many contexts, including those with a widespread heterogeneity. We propose a model that rationalizes this phenomenon. An expert recommends publicly to two agents whether to adopt a policy. The expert is privately informed about agents' payoffs from...

We study the optimal size and composition of an advisory committee when shareholders differ in preferences and beliefs and strategically acquire and communicate information. If shareholders and management have similar objectives but disagree due to different beliefs, and information is cheap,...

We investigate whether managers internalize the spillover effects of their disclosure on the stock price of related firms and strategically alter their disclosure decisions when doing so is beneficial. Using data on firm-initiated disclosures during all-cash acquisitions, we find evidence...