We review the theory and statistical evidence concerning the causes and effects of seasoned public offerings of common stock. We focus in particular on results and findings that post-date the well known survey by Smith (1986). In fact, recent studies now provide at least partial answers to...

Private equity has reaped large rewards in recent years. We claim that one major reason for this success is due to the corporate governance advantages of private equity over the public corporation. We argue that the development of substantial derivative contracts and trading has significantly...

Flotation costs represent a significant loss of capital to firms and are positively related to information asymmetry between managers and outside investors. We measure a firm's information asymmetry by its accounting information quality based on two extensions of the Dechow and Dichev earnings...

This essay surveys the extant literature and adds to the empirical evidence on issuance activity,flotation costs, and valuation effects of security offerings. We focus primarily on public offerings of equity for cash, although we also review and present new evidence on debt offerings and private...

We study merger and acquisition (Mamp;A) payment choices of European bidders for publicly and privately held targets in the 1997-2000 period. Europe is an ideal venue for studying the importance of corporate governance in making Mamp;A payment choices, given the large number of closely held...

The 'new issues puzzle' is that stocks of common stock issuers subsequently underperform nonissuers matched on size and book-to-market ratio. With 7000 seasoned equity and debt issues, we document that issuer underperformance reflects lower systematic risk exposure for issuing firms relative to...

We examine the economic benefits of acquisitions of U.S. public firms. Estimating revelation biases concerning internal investment opportunities, we find that it produces a significant negative bidder announcement effect, often interpreted as shareholder wealth destruction. Examining exogenously...

We explore the determinants of compensation gaps between a firm's CEO and its other top executives, and compare the ability of two competing optimal contracting theories, namely tournament theory and productivity theory, to explain the cross sectional variability in these gaps across firms. We...

Evaluating agency theory and optimal contracting theory of corporate philanthropy, we find that as giving increases, shareholders reduce their valuation of cash holdings. Dividend increases following the 2003 Tax Reform Act are also associated with reduced corporate giving. Using a natural...

Extensive research finds that shareholder and CEO preferences affect demand for director services. We find a large body of evidence that independent director reputation incentives influence the supply of director services. These reputation incentives vary across firms and over time,...