We examine how liquidity and return concerns at large mutual funds explain their diminished participation in small IPOs since the late 1990s. Using 5825 IPOs and portfolio-level information for 37,052 funds, we exploit Russia's 1998 debt default as an exogenous shock to funds' liquidity concerns. After 1998, large funds invested in fewer small/illiquid IPOs and more large/liquid IPOs than smaller funds and received higher returns for small IPO investments. Given increased fund sizes since 1990, these results are consistent with funds' liquidity concerns and their demand for greater compensation when investing in transactions representing a trivial fraction of fund assets.

Using an original dataset of fully monetized LBOs initiated from 1990 to 2006, we examine the emergence of an entrepreneurial transaction strategy focused on revenue growth and its incidence relative to more “classic” strategies focused on operating efficiencies. We additionally show how the conventional focus on returns measured at an IPO or acquisition frequently overstates actual realized returns to sponsors. Using this return data, we evaluate how “classic” and “entrepreneurial” strategies are associated with sponsors' equity returns. Among successful LBOs, LBOs that enhance operating efficiencies produce the highest “exit” returns; however, LBO sponsors commonly fail to monetize these returns due to delays associated with liquidating portfolio positions. In contrast, LBOs that focus on growing revenues are associated with higher fully realized equity returns, suggesting more sustainable value-creation for sponsors and their investors.

Where legal systems and market forces enforce contracts inadequately, vertical integration can circumvent these transaction difficulties. But, such environments often also feature highly interventionist government, and even corruption. Vertical integration might then enhance returns to political rent-seeking aimed at securing and extending market power. China offers a suitable background for empirical examination of these issues because her legal and market institutions are generally weak, but nonetheless exhibit substantial province-level variation. We report that Chinese firms in the 2000's are more vertically integrated than the U.S. firms in the 1990s. We find that vertical integration is more common where legal institutions are weaker and where regional governments are of lower quality or more interventionist. Further, firms led by insiders with political connection are more likely to be vertically integrated. Finally, vertical integration among politically unconnected firms is associated with elevated per capita GDP level and growth, while vertical integration among politically connected firms is unrelated to local economy performance.

We provide the first direct empirical evidence of the effect of CEO social capital on aggregate corporate risk-taking. Our theory predicts that CEOs with high social capital display higher levels of risk-seeking behavior. Consistent with this prediction, we find a positive association between CEO social capital and aggregate corporate risk-taking. Examining the channel, we show that social ties cause corporate policy actions, and these actions lead to greater volatilities in stock returns and earnings. In addition, we uncover a number of factors that significantly moderate the effects of social capital on risk-taking. We also show that this increase in risk-taking is value-enhancing to the firm. Our results are robust to alternative proxies for risk-taking, alternative model specifications, and tests for endogeneity.

There is a widespread belief among observers that a lower premium is paid when the target CEO is retained by the acquirer in a private equity deal because conflicts of interest lead her to negotiate less aggressively on behalf of the target shareholders. Our empirical evidence is not consistent with this belief. We find that, when a private equity acquirer retains the target CEO, target shareholders receive an acquisition premium that is larger by as much as 18% of pre-acquisition firm value when accounting for the endogeneity of the retention decision. Our evidence is consistent with what we call the “valuable CEO hypothesis.” With this hypothesis, retention of the CEO can be valuable to private equity acquirers because, unlike public operating companies with managers in place, these acquirers have to find a CEO to run the post-acquisition company and the incumbent CEO may be the best choice to do so because she has valuable firm-specific human capital. When a private equity acquirer finds a target with a CEO who can manage the post-acquisition company better than other potential CEOs, we expect target shareholders to receive a larger premium because the post-acquisition value of the target is higher.