This paper analyzes how blockholders can exert governance even if they cannot intervene in a firm's operations. Blockholders have strong incentives to monitor the firm's fundamental value because they can sell their stakes upon negative information. By trading on private information (following the “Wall Street Rule”), they cause prices to reflect fundamental value rather than current earnings. This in turn encourages managers to invest for long-run growth rather than short-term profits. Contrary to the view that the U.S.'s liquid markets and transient shareholders exacerbate myopia, I show that they can encourage investment by impounding its effects into prices.

This paper analyzes how blockholders can exert governance even if they cannot intervene in a firm's operations. Blockholders have strong incentives to monitor the firm's fundamental value because they can sell their stakes upon negative information. By trading on private information (following the “Wall Street Rule”), they cause prices to reflect fundamental value rather than current earnings. This in turn encourages managers to invest for long‐run growth rather than short‐term profits. Contrary to the view that the U.S.'s liquid markets and transient shareholders exacerbate myopia, I show that they can encourage investment by impounding its effects into prices.

We study optimal compensation in a dynamic framework where the CEO consumes in multiple periods, can undo the contract by privately saving, and can temporarily inflate earnings. We obtain a simple closed‐form contract that yields clear predictions for how the level and performance sensitivity of pay vary over time and across firms. The contract can be implemented by escrowing the CEO's pay into a “Dynamic Incentive Account” that comprises cash and the firm's equity. The account features state‐dependent rebalancing to ensure its equity proportion is always sufficient to induce effort, and time‐dependent vesting to deter short‐termism.

This paper investigates the stock market reaction to sudden changes in investor mood. Motivated by psychological evidence of a strong link between soccer outcomes and mood, we use international soccer results as our primary mood variable. We find a significant market decline after soccer losses. For example, a loss in the World Cup elimination stage leads to a next‐day abnormal stock return of −49 basis points. This loss effect is stronger in small stocks and in more important games, and is robust to methodological changes. We also document a loss effect after international cricket, rugby, and basketball games.

Using mutual fund redemptions as an instrument for price changes, we identify a strong effect of market prices on takeover activity (the “trigger effect”). An interquartile decrease in valuation leads to a seven percentage point increase in acquisition likelihood, relative to a 6% unconditional takeover probability. Instrumentation addresses the fact that prices are endogenous and increase in anticipation of a takeover (the “anticipation effect”). Our results overturn prior literature that finds a weak relation between prices and takeovers without instrumentation. These findings imply that financial markets have real effects: They impose discipline on managers by triggering takeover threats.