[This article documents differences between the Q-sensitivity of investment of stand-alone firms and unrelated segments of conglomerate firms. Unrelated segments exhibit lower Q-sensitivity of investment than stand-alone firms. This fact is driven by unrelated segments of conglomerate firms that tend to invest less than stand-alone firms in high-Q industries. This finding is robust to matching on industry, year, size, age, and profitability. The differences are more pronounced in conglomerates in which top management has small ownership stakes, suggesting that agency problems explain the investment behavior of conglomerates.]

This article documents differences between the Q-sensitivity of investment of stand-alone firms and unrelated segments of conglomerate firms. Unrelated segments exhibit lower Q-sensitivity of investment than stand-alone firms. This fact is driven by unrelated segments of conglomerate firms that tend to invest less than stand-alone firms in high-Q industries. This finding is robust to matching on industry, year, size, age, and profitability. The differences are more pronounced in conglomerates in which top management has small ownership stakes, suggesting that agency problems explain the investment behavior of conglomerates.

This paper investigates whether labor unions use proposals opportunistically to influence contract negotiations. Our empirical strategy relies on the observation that proposals have higher bargaining-chip value in contract expiration years, when a new contract must be negotiated. We find that in contract expiration years compared with nonexpiration years, unions increase their proposal rate by one-fifth, particularly proposals concerning executive compensation. Union proposals made during expiration years are less likely to be supported by other shareholders or a leading proxy advisor; the market reacts negatively to union proposals in expiration years; and withdrawn union proposals are accompanied by higher wage settlements. Received March 14, 2017; editorial decision July 19, 2018 by Editor Wei Jiang.