This paper studies the disciplinary spillover effects of proxy contests on companies that share directors with target firms, that is, interlocked firms. In difference-in-differences tests, I find that interlocked firms reduce excess cash holdings, increase shareholder payouts, cut CEO compensation, and engage in less earnings management in the year after proxy contests. The effects are more pronounced when both the interlocked and target firms have a unitary board and when the interlocking director is up for election, is younger, or has shorter tenure. Overall, the evidence highlights the importance of directors’ career concerns in policy spillovers across firms with board interlocks.

The likelihood of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) jumps discontinuously when the stock price equals the most recent equity offer price. Anchoring on the last offer price holds after considering executive turnovers, stock splits, earnings management, or dividend adjustments. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design around this cutoff, which exploits local randomness in stock prices, we investigate the consequences of anchoring in SEOs. We find significant increases in cash holdings and acquisitions of lower quality, with no real effects on investment or employment. Overall, we provide some of the cleanest estimates, to date, of the timing and causal effects of SEOs.