Acquirer advisors now often arrange syndicated loans financing merger and acquisition deals they advise on. This paper shows that such an advisor-lender dual role facilitates valuable big-ticket deals. There is a positive announcement effect for the acquirer which also shows no systematic post-deal underperformance—dispelling concerns about the advisor abetting managerial empire building. But advisor-led syndicated loans, despite being larger in size, have higher loan spreads than those led by non-advisors. Advisors apparently have an information advantage but rent extraction is unlikely. The higher charges are justifiable in view of the significantly lower post-deal creditworthiness of dual-role bidders. Advisor-lender's superior information about adverse changes in the credit risk is rationally priced into the dual-role interest rate premium.

This paper examines the impact of the local opioid epidemic on corporate innovation. Utilizing a large sample of U.S. public firms from 2003 to 2017, we find that firms located in counties with higher death rates caused by opioid overdoses are significantly less innovative as measured by their patenting activities. To establish causality, we exploit the state implementations of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) as quasi-experiments and an instrumented variable approach. We find suggestive evidence that the opioid epidemic hinders local firms' innovation by increasing healthcare costs, decreasing productivity, and through the exodus of local inventors.