Corporations in many countries are run by controlling shareholders whose cash flow rights in the firm are substantially smaller than their control rights. This separation of ownership and control allows the controlling shareholders to pursue private benefits at the cost of minority investors by...

We study the determinants of private benefits of control in negotiated block transactions. We estimate the block pricing model in Burkart, Gromb, and Panunzi (2000) explicitly accounting for both block premia and block discounts in the data. The evidence suggests that the occurrence of a block...

Standard representative-agent models have difficulty in accounting for the weak correlation between stock returns and measurable fundamentals, such as consumption and output growth. This failing underlies virtually all modern asset-pricing puzzles. The correlation puzzle arises because these...

This paper presents an industry equilibrium model where firms can choose to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. We model CSR activities as an investment in customer loyalty and show that CSR decreases systematic risk and increases firm value. These effects are stronger...

An inherent difficulty in valuing controlling blocks of shares is the illiquidity of the market. We explore the pricing implications associated with the illiquidity of controlling blocks of shares in the context of a search model of block trades. The model considers several dimensions of...

A central challenge in asset pricing is the weak connection between stock returns and observable economic fundamentals. We provide evidence that this connection is stronger than previously thought. We use a modified version of the Bry-Boschan algorithm to identify long-run swings in the stock...

This paper presents a contracting model of governance based on the premise that CEOs are the main promoters of governance change. CEOs use their power to extract higher pay or private benefits, and different governance structures are preferred by different CEOs as they favour one or the other...

We analyze the effect that real-time domestic and foreign news about fundamentals have on the correlation of stock returns of a small open economy, Portugal, and a large open economy, the U.S. We also study the role of public and private information in the price formation process in the U.S. and...

This paper studies international equity markets when some investors have private information that is valuable for trading in many countries simultaneously. We use a dynamic model of equity trading to show that 'global' private information helps understand US investors’ trading behaviour and...

This paper provides a dynamic rational expectations equilibrium model in which investors have heterogeneous information and investment opportunities. Informed investors privately receive advance information that is useful for predicting future earnings, but is unrelated to current earnings. This...