A familiarity bias of target shareholders allows bidders to opportunistically choose the payment method in mergers and acquisitions. We employ the Stambaugh, Yu and Yuan (2015) mispricing score to identify overvalued bidders, reconfirming that overvaluation is a central driver of the payment choice. Using an instrumental variable based on exogenous price pressure, we provide causal evidence for bidder opportunism. Further analyses show that target shareholders more familiar with the bidder are more likely to accept equity despite particularly adverse market reactions. Our results suggest that behavioral biases of shareholders contribute to the transmission of stock market inefficiencies to the market for corporate control.

We analyze the role of bankers on the boards of German non-financial companies for the period from 1994 to 2005. We find that banks that are represented on a firm's board promote their own business as lenders and as M&A advisors. They also seem to act as financial experts who help firms to obtain funding, especially in difficult times. We find little evidence that bankers monitor management and suggest that bankers on the board cause a decline in the valuations of non-financial firms. Banks’ equity ownership declined sharply during our sample period and the German financial system lost some of its formerly distinctive features.

Do behavioral biases of executives matter for corporate investment decisions? Using segment‐level capital allocation in multisegment firms (“conglomerates”) as a laboratory, we show that capital expenditure is increasing in the expected skewness of segment returns. Conglomerates invest more in high‐skewness segments than matched stand‐alone firms, and trade at a discount, which indicates overinvestment that is detrimental to shareholder wealth. Using geographical variation in gambling norms, we find that the skewness‐investment relation is particularly pronounced when CEOs are likely to find long shots attractive. Our findings suggest that CEOs allocate capital with a long‐shot bias.