We summarize and synthesize the results of the articles in this symposium issue on research in financial economics related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the articles, taken together, present evidence that the pandemic resulted in a distributional shock to capital allocation. The underlying mechanisms include accelerating technological shifts, government stimulus programs, and heterogeneous responses of investors and firms. We augment these articles with evidence on the heterogeneous effects of the pandemic on profitability, payout, investment, employment, and productivity across sectors.

This article introduces the impact of debt misvaluation on merger and acquisition activity. We show the potential for debt misvaluation to help explain the shifting dominance of financial acquirers (private equity firms) relative to strategic acquirers (operating companies). Fundamental differences in governance and project coinsurance between the two types of acquirer would interact with debt misvaluation, resulting in variation in how assets are owned that depends on debt market conditions. We find support for our theory in merger data using a novel measure of debt misvaluation.

We examine the rewards for experience and ability in the director labor market. We show that large acquisitions are associated with significantly higher numbers of subsequent board seats for the acquiring CEO, target CEO, and the directors. We also find that, in the case of acquisitions, experience is more important than ability. Both value-destroying and value-increasing acquisitions have significant and positive effects on a CEO's future prospects in the director labor market. In addition to increasing our understanding of the director labor market, these results suggest that the ex post settling-up incentives thought to exist in the director labor market are weak for acquisitions.

We study the effect of investor horizons on a comprehensive set of corporate decisions. We argue that monitoring by long-term investors generates decision making that maximizes shareholder value. We find that long-term investors strengthen governance and restrain managerial misbehaviors such as earnings management and financial fraud. They discourage a range of investment and financing activities but encourage payouts. Innovation increases, in quantity and quality. Shareholders benefit through higher profitability that the stock market does not fully anticipate, and lower risk.

Operating leverage increases profitability and reduces optimal financial leverage. Thus, operating leverage generates a negative relation between profitability and financial leverage that is thought to be inconsistent with the trade-off theory but is commonly observed in the data. We demonstrate the effect of operating leverage on firms’ profitability and financial leverage, as well as on the empirical relation between profitability and financial leverage, by using China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 and its effect on the capital–labor ratio of U.S. firms.

Theory predicts that horizontal acquisitions can effectively increase incumbent firms’ market power in concentrated industries with high product similarity. Using a novel measure for industry product similarity, we show that in such industries firms’ propensity to make horizontal acquisitions is greater and that the acquisitions result in more positive announcement returns for the acquirer and rival firms and in a larger premium paid for the target. Also, the deals harm dependent customer and supplier firms and they are more likely to be challenged by antitrust authorities. Overall, by emphasizing the importance of product similarity, our results help explain mixed empirical findings on whether horizontal acquisitions are used to reduce competition intensity.

In the context of large acquisitions, we provide evidence on whether firms have target capital structures. We examine how deviations from these targets affect how bidders choose to finance acquisitions and how they adjust their capital structure following the acquisitions. We show that when a bidder's leverage is over its target level, it is less likely to finance the acquisition with debt and more likely to finance the acquisition with equity. Also, we find a positive association between the merger-induced changes in target and actual leverage, and we show that bidders incorporate more than two-thirds of the change to the merged firm's new target leverage. Following debt-financed acquisitions, managers actively move the firm back to its target leverage, reversing more than 75% of the acquisition's leverage effect within five years. Overall, our results are consistent with a model of capital structure that includes a target level and adjustment costs.

We extract information from earnings call transcripts to develop a comprehensive and reliable measure of labor shortage exposure. After validating the measure at the state, industry, and firm levels, we show that firms with labor shortage exposures experience lower earnings call CARs, future stock returns and operating performance. Firms respond to labor shortages by substituting labor with capital and R&D investments, and by producing more production-process patents. Such responses help mitigate the negative effects on future performance. Our measure has broad applicability, and our findings provide new insight into labor-capital substitution in imperfectly competitive labor markets.

The value a director provides to a firm is empirically difficult to establish. We estimate that value by exploiting the commonality in idiosyncratic returns of firms linked by a director and show that, on average, a director’s influence causes variation in firm value of almost 1% per year. The return commonality is not due to industry or other observable economic links. Variation in the availability of information on shared directors and a placebo test exploiting the timing of shared directors provide further identification. The results also imply that the directorial labor market does not fully assess directors in real time.

Firm values can substantially change between the time deal terms are set and the actual deal closing, risking renegotiation, or termination. We find increases in market volatility decrease subsequent deal activity, but only for public targets subject to an interim period. The effect is strongest when volatility is highest, for deals taking longer to close, and for larger targets. Merging parties attempt to shorten the interim window as risk increases. Firm- and industry-level uncertainty measures reveal similar findings, ruling out an unobserved macro variable. We conclude interim uncertainty contributes to understanding the timing and intensity of public firms’ merger activity.