We examine activist short sellers’ real impacts on their target firms using a novel dataset of new product introductions (NPIs). We document that target firms experience declines in NPIs relative to their matched control firms after being targeted. Target firms also experience reductions in...

Boards are crucial to shareholder wealth. Yet, little is known about how shareholder oversight affects director incentives. Using exogenous industry shocks to institutional investor portfolios, we find that institutional investor distraction weakens board oversight. Distracted institutions are...

We study how the existence of important production contracts affects the choice of CEO compensation contracts. We hypothesize that having major customers raises the costs associated with CEO risk-taking incentives and leads to lower option-based compensation. Using industry-level import tariff...