Companies that use their own stock to finance acquisitions have incentives to increase their market values prior to the acquisition. This study examines whether such companies mislead investors by issuing overly optimistic forecasts of future earnings (“deception by commission”) or by...

Exploiting mergers between lenders and shareholders of the same firm as an exogenous shock to dual ownership, we examine the role that dual holdings (i.e., simultaneous equity and debt holding) play in shaping firms’ ex ante expected stock price crash risk evident in the options implied...