We hypothesize that firms structure their asset holdings so as to shelter assets from extraction by politicians and bureaucrats. Specifically, in countries where the threat of political extraction is higher, we hypothesize that firms will hold a lower fraction of their assets in liquid form....

Recent studies have documented systematic exchanges of favors between politicians and firms, and that connected firms, on average gain from political ties. Since these ties are often to a top manager or large shareholder, agency problems are likely more severe for politically connected firms....

I investigate the sources of value gains in public-to-private transactions by examining the wealth effects on industry rivals of target firms. For a sample of 279 public-to-private bids in the U.S. from 1980 to 2007, I find that agency hypothesis explains more of the cross-sectional variation in...

We document that the quality of earnings reported by politically connected firms is significantly poorer than that of similar non-connected companies. Moreover, we find that earnings quality has no predictive power for the likelihood of establishing connections. Hence, we rule out that our...

Recent studies have documented systematic exchanges of favors between politicians and firms, and that connected firms, on average gain from political ties. Since these ties are often to a top manager or large shareholder, agency problems are likely more severe for politically connected firms....

Analysis of a world-wide sample of sudden deaths of politicians reveals a market adjusted 1.7% decline in the value of companies headquartered in the politician’s home town. The decline in value is followed by a drop in the rate of growth in sales and access to credit. Our results are...

This study examines the performance of industry consolidating IPOs by using a sample of 58 firms that conducted a roll-up IPO over the 1994-1999 period and 55 build-up IPOs that went public between 1983 and 1999. Results indicate that the long-run stock price performance of roll-up IPOs...

Most working adults have access to a taxable brokerage account (TBA) and a tax deferred retirement account (TDRA). According to the existing literature, taxable bonds should be located in the TDRA, while equities should be located in the TBA due to the tax treatments of these accounts. If...

In the first essay, I test the predictions of the market timing theory of capital structure on a comprehensive sample of firms that issued debt and equity during the period January 1974-December 2001. I first categorize firms as likely and unlikely market timers based on their ability to time...

In Part I we develop a model of entry in which an entrant with private information about its production cost and cost of entry has an opportunity to trade in the stock of a single incumbent before entry. We assume an efficient stock market populated by risk-neutral liquidity sellers who randomly...