Using merger documents filed with the SEC from 1994 to 2018, we show that being selected by investment banks as “comparable peers” are more than twice as likely to become a target themselves in the future compared to control firms matched for industry and size. They also experience an...

Prior research finds that online social media usage may lower self-control and encourage indulgent behavior in laboratory subjects. We find that corporate CEOs show similar tendencies: CEOs with online social media presence are more likely to succumb to lower self-control and abuse their...

We examine whether rival CEOs’ overconfidence influences a focal firm’s research and development (R&D) expenditure. We propose a stylized model based on an R&D competition game with CEOs having a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses preference. Our model predicts that the overconfidence level of...

In corporate law policymaking, there is considerable attention to stock market short-termism. Public discourse pins some noticeable part of the blame for climate change, environmental damage, and mistreatment of stakeholders on stock market short-termism. Presidential candidates raise the issue...

We investigate the effect of CEO hedging on the likelihood and characteristics of M&A decisions. Because of their higher degree of risk tolerance, hedged CEOs are more likely to engage in M&As and are more likely to acquire private and smaller targets. M&A deals by hedged CEOs appear to create...

This paper investigates market reaction to, and insiders’ trading around, CEO succession events. Investors seem to react negatively to CEO resignation, but not to CEO retirement or death. Further, while investors do not react negatively to CEO turnover in high effective firms, their reaction...

We test the seminal Grossman and Hart (1988) model on the optimality of the one-share-one-vote share structure against the dual-class share structure in a laboratory experiment. Our result shows qualitative support to their theoretical prediction asserting that the more efficient contender of...

Using micro data on managerial expenditures, we uncover heuristics in capital budgets, such as nominal rigidity, anchoring, and sharp reset deadlines. Such heuristics engender managerial opportunism and erode investment efficiency. Managers with a budget surplus increase investment sharply...

Under a powerful narrative, Wall Street and its obsession with short-term profits are one of the main reasons why corporations—and by extension our economic system—are failing society. In Missing the Target: Why Stock-Market Short-Termism Is Not the Problem, Professor Mark Roe challenges...

We propose that when firm agents, such as managers and employees, perceive the board to have congruent values about ESG activities with them, then they are more willing to commit their human capital and effort to the ESG activities to increase firm value. Potentially positive NPV ESG projects...