Abstract This article explores the influence of single-child CEOs on corporate innovation and culture within the context of China’s one-child policy. Utilizing multiple identification strategies, we find that firms led by single-child CEOs invest significantly less in innovation and generate fewer and lower-impact patents. Examining the underlying economic mechanisms, we find that these CEOs foster a corporate culture that discourages trust and collaboration, leading to increased inventor departures. Additionally, firms under their leadership exhibit lower idiosyncratic risk, aligning with the typically cautious behavior of only children. Our analysis demonstrates that these outcomes are primarily driven by behavioral traits associated with being an only child, including self-centeredness, reduced team orientation, and heightened risk aversion. Overall, the study sheds light on how the singular upbringing of single-child CEOs shapes corporate behavior and performance, revealing the broader, enduring economic consequences of national population policies.

ABSTRACT We examine whether social media criticisms posted by small investors can predict subsequent firm acquisition decisions. Specifically, we use textual analysis to examine the internet stock message board postings of 303 value-reducing acquisition attempts. Our empirical evidence shows that small investors' negative postings are able to predict a potential acquirer's subsequent decision to withdraw its attempt. We further find that this predictive ability increases with the information quality of postings, and that the predictive information extracted from social media is incremental to that captured by proposal announcement returns, conventional media coverage, analyst reports, and institutional investors' responses related to the proposed acquisition. Finally, we show that message board criticisms are also able to predict governance outcomes beyond acquisition decisions. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that social media play a role in corporate governance by gathering crowd wisdom and uncovering additional value-relevant information. JEL Classifications: G34; G14; M41.