Prior research shows that religion promotes honesty. Honesty in turn motivates managers to view an expropriation from shareholders as self-serving, opportunistic, and unethical, thereby alleviating the agency conflict. Religious piety is thus expected to discourage agency-driven acquisitions...

Because religious piety induces individuals to be more honest and risk-averse, it makes managers less likely to exploit shareholders, thereby mitigating the agency conflict and potentially influencing governance arrangements. We exploit the variation in religious piety across U.S. counties and...

Purpose: Capitalizing on a unique measure of takeover susceptibility principally based on the staggered implementation of state laws, we explore the takeover market’s effect on managerial ownership. The market for corporate control, often known as the takeover market, is an important external...