This paper explores some consequences for economic efficiency of creative accounting practices by merging companies. It assumes semi-strong information efficiency in the markets for capital and for corporate control; and/or the use of executive contracts relating pay to accounting profit.Ahead...

Previous studies of the impact of M&A on performance have employed a range of measures of “profitability” or “rate of return”. Sometimes they have provided little in the way of rationalization; and sometimes the most appropriate measures have not been deployed for testing the chosen...

In this paper we examine whether sustainability characteristics of stocks and bonds affect asset allocations of wealthy retail investors. Using a large proprietary dataset of a private bank with monthly investment holdings of European private wealth investors, we document significantly larger...

This study consolidates the existing body of knowledge on the theory and empirical evidence of shareholder value effects of social responsibility and the returns to socially responsible investing. In doing so, it draws from the literature in accounting, economics, finance, law and management...

We construct and analyze a new data set on U.S. corporate ownership to study how the inclusion of blockholders' and corporate insiders' holdings affects the measurement of common ownership among America's largest publicly traded firms. Including blockholders’ and insiders’ holdings reveals...