M&As should be defined to include joint ventures, alliances, and divestitures in addition to mergers and acquisitions. M&As represent a neoclassical theory of how firms seek to enhance their capabilities and resources (the good). Good M&As are positive net present value external investments....

Industries that are more central in the network of intersectoral trade earn higher stock returns than industries that are less central. To explain this finding, I argue that stocks in more central industries have greater market risk because they have greater exposure to sectoral shocks that...

Firms have an incentive to manage media coverage to influence their stock price during important corporate events. Using comprehensive data on media coverage and merger negotiations, we find that bidders in stock mergers originate substantially more news stories after the start of merger...

Terrorist attacks influence economic growth and individual psychology. However, identifying the direct effect of terrorism on economics and psychology is difficult because institutions also change in response to terrorist attacks. This paper controls for institutional responses to terrorist...

We find strong evidence that three key dimensions of national culture (trust, hierarchy, and individualism) affect merger volume and synergy gains. The volume of cross-border mergers is lower when countries are more culturally distant. In addition, greater cultural distance in trust and...

This paper exploits hand-collected data on illegal insider trades to test whether standard illiquidity measures can detect informed trading. Controlling for unobserved cross-sectional and time-series variation, sampling bias, and strategic timing of insider trades, I find that only absolute...