Using granular barcode-level sales data from retail stores, we show that environmental and social ratings are positively related to local sales, especially in counties with more Democratic-leaning and higher-income households. Higher ratings of a firm's product market rivals negatively affect a...

During the Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo events, firms with a non-sexist corporate culture, proxied by having women among the five highest paid executives, earn excess returns of 1.6%. Returns for firms with female executives are substantially higher in industries with few women in executive...

Firms that buy assets in fire sales earn excess returns that are two percentage points higher than in regular acquisitions. The mechanism behind this result is the reduced bargaining power of the seller. We find no difference in real effects or in the combined returns for buyers and sellers...

Funds with performance fees have annual net risk-adjusted returns of 0.50% below other funds, a result mostly due to funds without a stochastic benchmark against which performance is measured and funds with a benchmark that is easy to beat. This is not due to unobservable differences in fund...

We investigate whether a firm's social capital, and the trust that it engenders, are viewed favorably by bondholders. Using firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to proxy for social capital, we find no relation between CSR and bond spreads over the period 2005-2013. However,...

There is a curvilinear relation between credit ratings and acquisitions. Non-investment grade firms make more acquisitions as their ratings improve, consistent with the relaxation of financial constraints. However, this pattern reverses for investment grade firms, supporting the view that such...