We show that higher institutional ownership causes firms to pay more dividends. Our identification relies on a discontinuity in ownership around Russell index thresholds. Our estimates indicate that a one-percentage-point increase in institutional ownership causes a $7 million (8%) increase in dividends. We also find differences in shareholder proposals and voting patterns that suggest that even nonactivist institutions play an important role in monitoring firm behavior. The effect of institutional ownership on dividends is stronger for firms with higher expected agency costs.

We examine the impact of investor coordination on governance. We identify coordinating groups of investors (cliques) as those connected through the network of institutional holdings. Clique members vote together on proxy items: a one standard deviation increase in clique ownership more than doubles votes against low quality management proposals. We use the 2003 mutual fund trading scandal to show that this effect is causal. These findings suggest coordination strengthens governance via voice. Coordination, however, also weakens governance via threat of exit. Clique owners exit positions more slowly, and firm value responds negatively to liquidity shocks when clique ownership is high.

We apply methods designed to measure mutual fund skill to a cross section of funds that is unlikely to exhibit managerial portfolio selection skill: index funds. Surprisingly, these tests imply index fund skill exists, is persistent, and is in similar proportion as in active funds. We use the distribution of passive fund performance to gauge the incremental ability of active managers. Outperformance by top active funds is lower when benchmarked to the index fund distribution and disappears when we account for residual risk. Stochastic dominance tests suggest no risk-averse investor should choose a random active fund over a random index fund.

We identify the causal effects of short-selling bans on stock prices using regression discontinuity (RD). We exploit three threshold-based rules that determine a stock’s short-selling eligibility on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Short-selling bans have a large effect on short-selling volume at all thresholds. Despite this, bans do not affect stock prices. Stock returns, volatility, and crash risk are not different for banned versus unrestricted stocks when appropriate counterfactual stocks are used to measure a ban’s effects. Our findings suggest that short-selling bans are not as costly as previously argued, but are ineffective at reducing volatility or buttressing prices. Received September 13, 2017; editorial decision April 29, 2018 by Editor Jeffrey Pontiff.

There is a standard trade-off in compensation contracts between the provision of incentives and insurance. We hypothesize that this trade-off influences the precision with which firm performance is measured. We find that firm outcomes are measured less precisely when chance plays a large role in these outcomes. Further, this precision is determined through the choice of shares outstanding. This has several novel implications. Nominal stock prices can remain constant over time, and firms with unpredictable cash flows should have more shares and lower stock price levels, all else equal. We find evidence consistent with these implications.

We show that higher institutional ownership causes firms to pay more dividends. Our identification relies on a discontinuity in ownership around Russell index thresholds. Our estimates indicate that a one-percentage-point increase in institutional ownership causes a $7 million (8%) increase in dividends. We also find differences in shareholder proposals and voting patterns that suggest that even nonactivist institutions play an important role in monitoring firm behavior. The effect of institutional ownership on dividends is stronger for firms with higher expected agency costs.

Mutual funds seek alpha, but coskewness is also an important performance attribute. Coskewness of fund returns is associated with market timing, liquidity management, and derivative use. Measures of active management associated with positive alphas are also associated with undesirable coskewness. When controlling for other characteristics, coskewness is positively associated with activity measures related to market timing and negatively associated with activity measures related to stock picking. In the cross-section of funds, the latter effect dominates, so funds generate undesirable coskewness in the pursuit of alpha. Money flows to funds with desirable coskewness. Received October 25, 2016; editorial decision January 29, 2018 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.