For three academic years (2011-2014), the Harvard Law School's Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) operated a clinical program assisting institutional investors on board declassification proposals. This paper analyzes the SRP as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the value implications of...

By all measures, the continuous growth and expansion of private equity has been astounding. From a $30 billion allocation in 1992 worldwide, the industry has grown approximately 180 times fold in less than a quarter century. Once regarded as a small blip at the margin of alternative investments,...

According to an influential view in corporate law writings and debates, pressure from shareholders leads companies to take myopic actions that are costly in the long term, and insulating boards from such pressure serves the long-term interests of companies as well as their shareholders. This...

The debate over whether dual class of shares increases or decreases share value, should be prohibited or not, should be subjected to mandatory sunset provisions, and so on has been heating up over the last few years. This paper reviews the pros and cons of dual class of shares in light of more...

We investigate the Dead Hand Proxy Put, a contractual innovation in corporate debt agreements that may impact hedge fund activism. We find the provision principally in loans, not bonds, and provide evidence linking adoption of the provision to hedge fund activism. Further, controlling for...

The problem of managerial agency costs dominates debates in corporate law. Many leading scholars advocate reforms that would reduce agency costs by forcing firms to allocate more control to shareholders. Such proposals disregard the costs that shareholders avoid by delegating control to managers...