This article investigates how the job histories of CEOs influence their capital allocation decisions when they preside over multidivisional firms. I find that, after CEO turnover, divisions not previously affiliated with the new CEO receive significantly more capital expenditures than divisions...

This paper explores two broad questions on collaboration between individuals. First, we investigate what personal characteristics affect people's desire to work together. Second, given the influence of these personal characteristics, we analyze whether this attraction enhances or detracts from...

This paper examines the influence of directors' job security on firms' innovation project choices.Using the staggered enactment of majority voting legislation as an exogenous threat to directors'job security, we find that after legislative changes, the affected firms produce fewer...

This paper studies how mandating employers to provide health insurance of a minimum quality and the associated increases in health insurance premia affect firm employment and performance. To do so, we use hand-collected firm-level employee health insurance data. We find that employers with...

This paper demonstrates the tacit benefits that accrue to both politicians and the firms to which they are connected through stock ownership. Specifically, we show strong evidence that politicians use private information and political favors for financial gains from stock investments in their...

We explore gender differences in performance in a comprehensive sample of venture capital investments in the United States. Investments by female venture capital investors have significantly lower success rates than investments by their male colleagues controlling for personal characteristics...

This paper investigates how executive employment contracts influence corporate financial policies during the final year of the contract term, using a new, hand-collected data set of CEO employment agreements. On the one hand, the impending expiration of fixed-term employment contracts creates...

We study the role of common venture capital investors in alleviating asymmetric information between public acquirers and private venture capital-backed targets. We find that acquisition announcement returns are more positive for acquisitions in which both the target and the acquirer are financed...

In this paper, we examine the characteristics of acquisition of private firms by public companies and explore the impact that venture capital-backing has on the acquirer's characteristics, form of payment, announcement returns, as well as long-run stock price and operating performance. We find...