[We test whether and how equity overvaluation affects corporate financing decisions using an ex ante misvaluation measure that filters firm scale and growth prospects from market price. We find that equity issuance and total financing increase with equity overvaluation, but only among overvalued stocks, and that equity issuance is more sensitive than debt issuance to misvaluation. Consistent with managers catering to maintain overvaluation and with investment-scale economy effects, the sensitivity of equity issuance and total financing to misvaluation is stronger among firms with potential growth opportunities (low book-to-market, high R&D, or small size) and high share turnover.]

The question of why individual investors want dividends is investigated by submitting a questionnaire to a Dutch investor panel. The respondents indicate that they want dividends partly because the cost of cashing in dividends is lower than the cost of selling shares. Their answers provide strong confirmation for the signaling theories of Bhattacharya (1979) [Bhattacharya, S., 1979. Imperfect information, dividend policy and the “bird in the hand” fallacy. Bell Journal of Economics 10, 259–270] and Miller and Rock (1985) [Miller, M., Modigliani, F., 1961. Dividend policy, growth and the valuation of shares. Journal of Business 34, 411–433]. They are inconsistent with the uncertainty resolution theory of Gordon (1961, 1962) [Gordon, M., 1961. The Investment, Financing, and Valuation of the Corporation, Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, IL; Gordon, M., 1962. The savings, investment and valuation of a corporation. Review of Economics and Statistics 44, 37–51.] and the agency theories of Jensen (1986) [Jensen, M.C., 1986. Agency costs of free cash flow, corporate finance and takeovers. American Economic Review 76, 323–329] and Easterbrook (1984) [Easterbrook, F.H., 1984. Two agency-cost explanations of dividends. American Economic Review 74, 650–659]. The behavioral finance theory of Shefrin and Statman (1984) [Shefrin, H.M., Statman, M., 1984. Explaining investor preference for cash dividends. Journal of Financial Economics 13, 253–282] is not confirmed for cash dividends but is confirmed for stock dividends. Finally, our results indicate that individual investors do not tend to consume a large part of their dividends. This raises some doubt as to whether a reduction or elimination of dividend taxes will stimulate the economy.

We estimate the profitability of global index-level trading strategies formed on daily weather conditions across 49 countries. We use pre-market weather conditions (sunshine, wind, rain, snow, and temperature) and the statistical relationship between weather and returns to predict index returns each day. In the out-of-sample test for our 1993–2012 sample, a global weather-based hedge strategy produces a mean annual return of 15.2% compared to a mean world index return of 6.2%, corresponding to a Sharpe ratio of 0.462 relative to 0.243 for the world index. Our findings confirm that multiple weather conditions exert economically important impacts on stock returns around the globe.

We test how market overvaluation affects corporate innovation. Estimated stock overvaluation is strongly associated with measures of innovative inventiveness (novelty, originality, and scope), as well as research and development (R&D) and innovative output (patent and citation counts). Misvaluation affects R&D more via a nonequity channel than via equity issuance. The sensitivity of innovative inventiveness to misvaluation increases with share turnover and overvaluation. The frequency of exceptionally high innovative inputs/outputs increases with overvaluation. This evidence suggests that market overvaluation may generate social value by increasing innovative output and encouraging firms to engage in “moon shots.”

We hypothesize that employee flexibility enhances firm value by helping firms respond to exogenous shocks. We estimate employee-flexibility scores through textual analysis of online job reviews, and we find that a high flexibility score leads to superior stock returns for firms exposed to external risk. During 2011–2017, the value-weighted hedge portfolio formed on employee flexibility earned a 5-factor annualized alpha of 9.5% during periods of high policy uncertainty. Earnings-announcement returns also suggest that investors do not fully value workforce flexibility. These results indicate that employee flexibility is a valuable corporate intangible that helps firms to manage risk during uncertain times.

We test whether and how equity overvaluation affects corporate financing decisions using an ex ante misvaluation measure that filters firm scale and growth prospects from market price. We find that equity issuance and total financing increase with equity overvaluation; but only among overvalued stocks; and that equity issuance is more sensitive than debt issuance to misvaluation. Consistent with managers catering to maintain overvaluation and with investment scale economy effects, the sensitivity of equity issuance and total financing to misvaluation is stronger among firms with potential growth opportunities (low book-to-market, high R&D, or small size) and high share turnover.

Conventional techniques of estimating takeover value improvements measure only a fraction of the total gain and include revelation about bidder stand-alone value. To address these biases, we develop the probability scaling method, which rescales announcement date returns; and the intervention method, which uses returns at intervening events. Perceived value improvements are larger than traditional methods indicate. We cannot reject the hypothesis that bidders on average pay fair prices. Combined bidder-target stock returns are higher for hostile offers, lower for equity offers, and lower for diversifying offers. These effects reflect revelation about bidder stand-alone value, not differences in gains from combination.

ABSTRACT This paper uses pre‐offer market valuations to evaluate the misvaluation and Q theories of takeovers. Bidder and target valuations (price‐to‐book, or price‐to‐residual‐income‐model‐value) are related to means of payment, mode of acquisition, premia, target hostility, offer success, and bidder and target announcement‐period returns. The evidence is broadly consistent with both hypotheses. The evidence for the Q hypothesis is stronger in the pre‐1990 period than in the 1990–2000 period, whereas the evidence for the misvaluation hypothesis is stronger in the 1990–2000 period than in the pre‐1990 period.