This study examines how the appointment of former politicians and regulators to boards of directors or management teams influences corporate acquisition activity and performance. We find that bidders with political connections are more likely to acquire targets and avoid regulatory delay or...

This paper shows that while a firm's percent of sales to the government is positively related to the firm's costs of debt, firms are able to offset this effect through political connections. Politically connected government contractors have lower costs of debt than non-connected contractors....

We examine whether political connections measured by political contributions influence the choice of terms included in government contracts awarded to firms. We construct an index of four “sweetheart” contract terms and find that firms making larger political contributions more frequently...

The ability to predict bank failure has become much more important since the mortgage foreclosure crisis began in 2007. The model proposed in this study uses proxies for the regulatory standards embodied in the so-called CAMELS rating system, as well as several local or national economic...

Prior authors note that investor distraction during Fridays and some holidays leads to muted responses to earnings surprises. We develop daily investor distraction measures using abnormal U.S. air traffic to proxy for investor distraction. These measures provide additional predictive information...