type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>We represent the economy as a network of industries connected through customer and supplier trade flows. Using this network topology, we find that stronger product market connections lead to a greater incidence of cross-industry mergers. Furthermore, mergers propagate in...</p>

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>We find that firms mitigate refinancing risk by increasing their cash holdings and saving cash from cash flows. The maturity of firms’ long-term debt has shortened markedly, and this shortening explains a large fraction of the increase in cash holdings over time....</p>

Cash-rich firms are more likely than other firms to attempt acquisitions. Stock return evidence shows that acquisitions by cash-rich firms are value decreasing. Cash-rich bidders destroy seven cents in value for every excess dollar of cash reserves held. Cash-rich firms are more likely to make...

We explore how compensation policies following mergers affect a CEO's incentives to pursue a merger. We find that even in mergers where bidding shareholders are worse off, bidding CEOs are better off three quarters of the time. Following a merger, a CEO's pay and overall wealth become...

We analyze a sample of 72 IPO firms that went public between 1992 and 1996 for which we have detailed proprietary information about the amount and cost of D&O liability insurance. If managers of IPO firms are exploiting superior inside information, we hypothesize that the amount of insurance...