In corporate finance and asset pricing empirical work, researchers are often confronted with
panel data. In these data sets, the residuals may be correlated across firms or across time …

Does CEO overconfidence help to explain merger decisions? Overconfident CEOs over-
estimate their ability to generate returns. As a result, they overpay for target companies and …

Potential diversification benefits are one reason why US financial holding companies are
offering a growing range of financial services. This paper examines whether the observed …

We posit that limited transparency of firms' operations to outside investors increases
demands on governance systems to alleviate moral hazard problems. We investigate how …

Using a sample of 44,288 firm‐ears between 1984 and 1997, we document an increase in
the extent of global diversification over time. This trend does not reflect a substitution of …

Using recent econometric developments about causal inference, I examine whether
diversification destroys value. I estimate the value effect of diversification by matching …

We propose that stronger creditor rights in bankruptcy affect corporate investment choice by
reducing corporate risk-taking. In cross-country analysis, we find that stronger creditor rights …

Using recently available GRESB ESG public disclosure data for REITs around the world, we
examine how ESG disclosure is related to REIT debt financing and firm value. We find that …

This paper describes and considers explanations for changes in corporate governance and
merger activity in the United States since 1980. Corporate governance in the 1980s was …

This paper investigates the effects of focus versus diversification on bank performance using
data on Chinese banks during the 1996–2006 period. We construct a new measure …