This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of a new and increasingly important phenomenon: the simultaneous holding of both equity and debt claims of the same company by noncommercial-banking institutions ("dual holders"). The presence of dual holders offers a unique opportunity to assess the...

This study provides the first large-sample empirical analysis on the characteristics, determinants, and returns from appraisal petitions during 2000-2014. We find that appraisal petitions increase from 2-3% of the eligible M&A deals in the early 2000s to around 25% of such deals in the most...

We present the first comprehensive study of mutual fund voting in proxy contests. Among contests where voting takes place, passive funds are ten percentage points less likely than active funds to vote for dissidents. The gap shrinks significantly when accounting for votes withheld from...

This paper documents frequent attempts by activist arbitrageurs to open-end discounted closed-end funds, particularly after the 1992 proxy reform which reduced the costs of communication among shareholders. Open-ending attempts have a substantial effect on discounts, reducing them, on average,...