Top sportsmen often refer to competition against other top sportsmen as a motivation to exert more effort. We examine whether a similar pattern exists among another group of top professionals – star analysts. Our evidence suggests that star analysts concentrate their efforts and generate...

We develop a novel measure of target shareholders’ average purchase price (TAPP). In a sample of all U.S. public firm merger offers from 1990 to 2019, we find that: (1) the offer premium is positively correlated with the ratio of TAPP to the target’s pre-offer stock price; (2) TAPP dominates...

We show that the intensity of "keeping up with the Joneses" behavior is largely determined by the extent to which a community is socially connected. Using a unique dataset on car purchases in Southern California, we find that social influence intensifies in suburban communities in which...