Investors increasingly allocate capital outside of public equity markets and through private equity investments. We evaluate capital allocation efficiency in public and private markets by comparing the marginal product of capital in firms that receive equity in each market. Public markets...

This paper provides a survey of the trade-off theory of corporate capital structure. First we provide an analysis of an equilibrium version of the theory. The firm raises debt from an investor. Debt provides interest tax shields but raises the probability of costly bankruptcy. The model provides...

Using a new measure of labor mobility instrumented by state-level shocks, I find that an increase in worker mobility negatively affects firms' average leverage and investment rates, but only in firms that rely on high-skill workers. I develop a dynamic model that provides an economic mechanism...

There is no consensus in the literature regarding the financial consequences of megamergers in part due to the difficulty in establishing a good counterfactual. By comparing the performance of these deals to the performance of synthetic mergers constructed using a novel matching procedure, we...

Recent studies argue that institutional common ownership in rival firms may reduce competition in product markets. Yet, empirical evidences are mixed. I re-examine this hypothesis, documenting that competition for flows on the ground of relative performance reduces institutional investors'...

In April 2012, Delta Air Lines (Delta) purchased a mothballed oil refinery. We use this case to illustrate when, how, and why vertical integration can hedge input price risk. First, we show that stockholders and creditors expected the move to create wealth. Consistent with their predictions,...

Recent evidences indicate that privatization leads to enormous benefits to society almost without undesirable costs. However, stakeholders of privatization seem not to satisfy the resulting performance of privatized firms. Using data from 202 firms privatized from 37 countries during the period...