Public attention to a firm may provide valuable monitoring, but it may also have a dark side by constraining management’s decisions and distracting it. We use inclusion in the S&P 500 index as a positive shock to public attention. Media coverage, Google searches, SEC downloads, SEC comment...

This paper examines the role of bond ratings and the effects of rating-based regulations in the corporate bond market. Exploiting an unanticipated mechanical change in how the benchmark Lehman bond indices are constructed in 2005, we show that rating-induced market segmentation of the bond...