We present a model of mergers and acquisitions based on stock market misvaluations of the combining firms. The key ingredients of the model are the relative valuations of the merging firms, the horizons of their respective managers, and the market's perception of the synergies from the...

This paper examines legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries. The results show that common-law countries generally have the strongest, and French-civil-law countries the weakest, legal...

This paper surveys research on corporate governance, with special attention to the importance of legal protection of investor and of ownership concentration in corporate governance systems around the world

Recent empirical research inn finance has uncovered two families of pervasive regularities: underreaction of stock prices to news such as earnings announcements; and overreaction of stock prices to a series of good or bad news. In this paper, we present a parsimonious model of investor sentiment...

Textbook arbitrage in financial markets requires no capital and entails no risk. In reality, almost all arbitrage requires capital, and is typically risky. Moreover, professional arbitrage is conducted by a relatively small number of highly specialized investors using other peoples' capital....

We present a model of mergers and acquisitions based on stock market misvaluations of the combining firms. The key ingredients of the model are the relative valuations of the merging firms, the horizons of their respective managers, and the market's perception of the synergies from the...

This paper uses a new data set of quarterly portfolio holdings of 769 all-equity pension funds between 1985 and 1989 to evaluate the potential effect of their trading on stock prices. We address two aspects of trading by money managers: herding, which refers to buying (selling) the same stocks...

Recent empirical research in finance has uncovered two families of pervasive regularities: underreaction of stock prices to news such as earnings announcements; and overreaction of stock prices to a series of good or bad news. In this paper, we present a parsimonious model of investor sentiment...

This paper examines the hypothesis that the superior return to so-called value stocks is the result of expectational errors made by investors. We study stock price reactions around earnings announcements for value and glamour stocks over a 5 year period after portfolio formation. The...

In traditional models, arbitrage in a given security is performed by a large number of diversified investors taking small positions against its mispricing. In reality, however, arbitrage is conducted by a relatively small number of highly specialized investors who take large positions using...