This paper is written with two goals in mind. The first is to offer a critical discussion of papers by Bauguess, Moeller, Schlingemann, and Zutter [Bauguess, Scott, Moeller, Sara, Schlingemann, Frederich and Zutter, Chad, 2009. Ownership structure and target returns. Journal of Corporate Finance, this issue], and Offenberg [Offenberg, David, 2009. Firm size and the effectiveness of the market for corporate control. Journal of Corporate Finance, this issue], both of which appear in this special issue. The second goal is to offer some perspectives about new questions that these papers bring to light.