In frictionless markets dividends are irrelevant to firm value (Miller and Modigliani 1961), but in practice we propose that they affect valuation and stewardship, roles traditionally filled by accounting information. Using a variety of econometric methods to control for differences between...

We provide evidence that firms with weak investment opportunities (those whose current earnings justify a greater valuation than firms with strong investment opportunities) signal their permanent earnings level through their dividends. In the cross-section, we show that both dividend levels and...

Fund trades and prices vary systematically with the quarterly reporting cycle. Funds are more likely to complete the building of a position at quarter-end, which is when most funds report positions to investors, and begin building new positions afterwards. While some of the observed shift in...

Prior to investing in a firm, fund managers must evaluate it. This tilts funds’ future portfolio positions toward former portfolio investments, as the past awareness of the firm decreases the cost of evaluating it in the future. We find that firms with many former investors experience...