Abstract This study examines the benefits and costs to a company of publicly announcing that it is seeking a potential sale or merger. I find that the announcement leads to increased market attention and a more robust merger and acquisition sales process—the benefits of improved transparency. However, I also find evidence of the announcement alienating stakeholders and increasing business disruption—the costs of credible disclosure. I document the countervailing valuation effects of these benefits and costs, where the net valuation effect depends on whether the company is subsequently acquired. This research is important because it (1) demonstrates the disclosure's impact on the company through multiple channels, (2) estimates the valuation effects, and (3) identifies key considerations for investors and other stakeholders who bear the consequences of such a disclosure.

Abstract Companies’ strategic alternatives announcements lead to negative future stock returns. First, we investigate whether this anomaly exists. We demonstrate that it is significant and pervasive across years, industries, firm size, and information environments and that it is not driven by confounding variables nor risk. We then investigate why the market misprices the announcements and find that investors appear overly optimistic about a potential merger or acquisition and do not fully incorporate the negative fundamental news conveyed by the announcement. Meanwhile, short sellers exploit the mispricing. We also evaluate market frictions as limits to arbitrage. This study’s contributions are (i) evaluating behavioral and risk explanations for an event that causes extreme stock returns, (ii) challenging investors’ widely held belief that such announcements reflect good news, and (iii) warning investors and analysts about a behavioral bias they might unknowingly adopt.

ABSTRACT A large body of empirical research in accounting investigates the causes and consequences of accruals quality, reaching numerous influential conclusions. Yet little work has been done to systematically evaluate the validity of the underlying measures of accruals quality. We evaluate these measures using three criteria: (1) Is the measure unaffected by the underlying economic determinants of accruals? (2) Does the measure consistently reflect errors in accruals? (3) Does the measure facilitate tests with sufficient power to detect plausible variation in accrual errors? Using a combination of theoretical modeling and numerical simulations, we show that all measures fail at least one of these criteria. Our evaluation provides new interpretations of existing research and guides the choice of measures and the interpretation of results in future research. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources identified in the paper. JEL Classifications: M41; C12.