By reducing the threat of a hostile takeover, business combination (BC) laws weaken corporate governance and increase the opportunity for managerial slack. Consistent with the notion that competition mitigates managerial slack, we find that while firms in non-competitive industries experience a significant drop in operating performance after the laws’ passage, firms in competitive industries experience no significant effect. When we examine which agency problem competition mitigates, we find evidence in support of a “quiet-life” hypothesis. Input costs, wages, and overhead costs all increase after the laws’ passage, and only so in non-competitive industries. Similarly, when we conduct event studies around the dates of the first newspaper reports about the BC laws, we find that while firms in non-competitive industries experience a significant stock price decline, firms in competitive industries experience a small and insignificant stock price impact.

This article argues that firms’ balance sheets were instrumental in the transmission of consumer demand shocks during the Great Recession. Using micro-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we find that establishments of more highly levered firms experienced significantly larger employment losses in response to declines in local consumer demand. These results are not driven by firms being less productive, having expanded too much prior to the Great Recession, or being generally more sensitive to fluctuations in either aggregate employment or house prices. Likewise, at the county level, we find that counties with more highly levered firms experienced significantly larger declines in employment in response to local consumer demand shocks. Accordingly, firms’ balance sheets also matter for aggregate employment. Our results suggest a possible role for employment policies that target firms directly besides conventional stimulus.

Using confidential establishment-level data from the US Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Business Database, this paper documents how local shocks propagate across US regions through firms’ internal networks of establishments. Consistent with a model of optimal within-firm resource allocation, we find that establishment-level employment is sensitive to shocks in distant regions in which the establishment’s parent firm is operating, and that the elasticity with respect to such shocks increases with the firm’s financial constraint. At the aggregate regional level, we find that aggregate county-level employment is sensitive to shocks in distant counties linked through firms’ internal networks.

We document how a positive shock to investment opportunities at one plant (“treated plant”) spills over to other plants within the same firm, but only if the firm is financially constrained. To provide the treated plant with resources, the firm's headquarters withdraws capital and labor from other plants, especially plants that are relatively less productive, not part of the firm's core industries, and located far away from headquarters. As a result of the resource reallocation, aggregate firm‐wide productivity increases. We do not find evidence of capital or labor spillovers among plants of financially unconstrained firms.

This paper examines whether firms in noncompetitive industries benefit more from good governance than do firms in competitive industries. We find that weak governance firms have lower equity returns, worse operating performance, and lower firm value, but only in noncompetitive industries. When exploring the causes of the inefficiency, we find that weak governance firms have lower labor productivity and higher input costs, and make more value‐destroying acquisitions, but, again, only in noncompetitive industries. We also find that weak governance firms in noncompetitive industries are more likely to be targeted by activist hedge funds, suggesting that investors take actions to mitigate the inefficiency.

This article examines the optimal CEO compensation and replacement policy when the CEO is privately informed about the firm’s continuation value under his leadership. Ex ante moral hazard implies that the CEO must receive ex post quasi rents, which endogenously biases him toward continuation. Our model shows that to induce “bad” CEOs to quit, it may be best to make continuation costly (through steep incentive pay) rather than simply rewarding quitting (through severance pay). Incentive pay makes continuation attractive for “good” CEOs, who can expect high future on-the-job pay, but unattractive for “bad” CEOs, who may instead prefer to take their outside option payoff. Our model generates novel empirical implications that jointly relate CEO compensation and turnover to corporate governance, firm size, cash-flow risk, and the informativeness of performance measurement.

This article shows that investors financing a portfolio of projects may use the depth of their financial pockets to overcome entrepreneurial incentive problems. Competition for scarce informed capital at the refinancing stage strengthens investors' bargaining positions. And yet, entrepreneurs' incentives may be improved, because projects funded by investors with “shallow pockets” must have not only a positive net present value at the refinancing stage, but one that is higher than that of competing portfolio projects. Our article may help understand provisions used in venture capital finance that limit a fund'sinitial capital and make it difficult to add more capital once the initial venture capital fund is raised.

The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted financial markets and the real economy worldwide. These extraordinary events prompted large monetary and fiscal policy interventions. Recognizing the unusual nature of the shock, the academic community has produced an impressive amount of research during the last year. Macro-finance models have been extended to analyze the impact of epidemics. Empirical papers study the origins and consequences of the disruptions and the impact of policy interventions. New research evaluates the ongoing financial fragility and its relation to previous episodes and regulations. This special issue contains early contributions to this important and rapidly developing literature.1

This paper examines the role of legal investor protection for the efficiency of the market for corporate control when bidders are financially constrained. In the model, stronger legal investor protection increases bidders' outside funding capacity. However, absent effective bidding competition, this does not improve efficiency, as the bid price, and thus bidders' need for funds, increases one‐for‐one with the pledgeable income. In contrast, under effective competition for the target, the increased outside funding capacity improves efficiency by making it less likely that more efficient but less wealthy bidders are outbid by less efficient but wealthier rivals.