Private firms' ability to communicate confidentially with selected investors implies that valuation disagreements between firms and investors are larger at public firms than at private ones. Consistent with the notion that misvaluation concerns lead public firms to hoard cash to be able to...

I examine the effect of shareholder litigation rights on the governance of firms. My empirical strategy exploits the staggered adoption of universal demand (UD) laws, which restrict lawsuits alleging a breach of fiduciary duty by directors or officers. UD is associated with an increase in the...

We study the effect of hedge fund activism on corporate environmental behaviors. Using plant-chemical level data from the EPA, we find that activism campaigns are associated with a 17 percent drop in emissions for chemicals at plants of targeted firms. Campaigns are associated with changes...

We study how parent liability for subsidiaries' environmental cleanup costs affects industrial pollution and production. Our empirical setting exploits a Supreme Court decision that strengthened parent limited liability protection for some subsidiaries. Using a difference-in-differences...

Blockchain technology has facilitated the emergence of a new type of organizational form, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). In contrast to corporations and other types of business organizations, DAOs do not have managers or directors with formal decision rights. Instead, the members...

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations ("DAOs'') are crypto-native organizations run without centralized management. Instead, managerial and financial decisions are made by token holders via a decentralized voting process. Taking advantage of the transparency of blockchains, we gather data on...

We document firm-level changes following mergers and acquisitions (M&As) which mirror aggregate shifts in the US labor market observed in response to greater use of automation. Specifically, we show post M&A establishments become less routine task intensive, more high-skilled, and pay more...

This paper exploits inter-temporal variations in employment protection across countries and finds that rigidities in labor markets are an important determinant of firms' capital structure decisions. Over the 1985-2007 period, we find that reforms increasing employment protection are associated...

Following state-level legal changes that increase labor dismissal costs, firms increase their innovation in new processes that facilitate the adoption of cost-saving production methods, especially in industries with a large share of labor costs in total costs. Firms with high innovation ability...