I show that the effect of commercial bank entry into the underwriting market is dependent on whether the offering is shelf registered. Since virtually all public debt is shelf registered today, this provides new evidence on the extent to which prior findings are relevant in today's capital...

Using staggered changes in ideology of U.S. circuit courts, we examine the effect of judicial ideology on business decisions. We find evidence that shifts towards more liberal courts, which are commonly viewed as less pro-business, lead to business turnover. Turnover begins with increased...

We examine how the regulatory burdens affect the investment and innovation of newly public firms. To do so, we exploit the Jumpstart our Business Start-up (JOBS) Act, which eliminates certain disclosure, auditing, and governance requirements for a subset of newly public firms. Firms treated with...

We examine the prevalence and determinants of CEOs' use of tax-advantaged trusts prior to their firm's IPO. Twenty-three percent of CEOs use tax-advantaged pre-IPO trusts, and share transfers into tax-advantaged trusts are positively associated with CEO equity wealth, estate taxes, and dynastic...

The JOBS Act allows certain analysts to be more involved in the IPO process, but does not relax restrictions on analyst compensation structure. We find that these analysts initiate coverage that is more optimistically biased, less accurate, and generates smaller stock market reactions. Investors...

I provide evidence of a new mechanism by which access to public securities mitigates the bank hold-up problem and reduces loan spreads – it increases a borrower's bargaining power vis-à-vis a lender by offering a bank loan substitute. Difference-in-differences results indicate that loan...

Following the adoption of state laws that increase firing costs, there is an immediate and persistent 30% reduction in both total mergers and acquisitions (M&A) dollar volume and average M&A size as well as an immediate increase in withdrawn deals. Firing costs do not affect M&A announcement...