This study examines the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) involving publicly traded target firms. We find that deals receiving comment letters have an increased likelihood of deal completion and deal price revision, consistent with the SEC...

This paper examines whether the massive Chinese anti-corruption campaign ensnares corrupt firms, contains a political component, and reduces corporate corruption. Consistent with the campaign's stated objectives, Chinese firms with characteristics commonly associated with measures of poor...

We examine whether bereavement affects managerial investment decisions in large organizations using the exogenous events of managers' family deaths. We find evidence in separate samples of mutual funds and publicly traded firms that bereaved managers take less risk. Mutual funds managed by...

The U.S. equity markets have experienced a remarkable decline in IPOs since 2000, both in terms of smaller IPO volume and entrepreneurial firms' greater tendency to exit through acquisitions rather than IPOs. Using proprietary U.S. Census data on private firms, we conduct a comprehensive...

Takeover bidders in stock-for-stock mergers have strong incentives to increase their own pre-merger stock prices to lower their acquisition costs. We find that before announcements of stock mergers, bidders manage down analyst earnings forecasts prior to earnings releases. Such expectation...