This article investigates investor activism when there are a number of strategic investors that are capable of intervening in corporate governance. These strategic investors can monitor and/or trade in anonymous financial markets. In equilibrium, a core group of monitoring investors emerges endogenously to curtail managerial opportunism. These core activists both intervene and trade aggressively. Although the smallest investors are passive, there is no monotonic relationship between the size of preexisting shareholdings and activism. In fact, among those investors who choose activism, those with the smallest holdings are the most aggressive.

We examine corporate spinoffs as events through which top management is restructured. Our main findings are: (1) firm‐specific human capital and human capital, in the form of governance expertise and top management experience, affect the composition of spinoff firms’ top management; (2) spinoff top management structure is related to the value created by a spinoff; and (3), for a subsample of firms, spinoffs serve as a form of management dismissal, with the opportunity to manage a smaller, weaker spinoff firm serving as a “consolation prize.”

This study examines the relations between earnings informativeness, measured by the earnings–return relation, and the ownership structure of 977 companies in seven East Asian economies. Our results are consistent with two complementary explanations. First, concentrated ownership and the associated pyramidal and cross-holding structures create agency conflicts between controlling owners and outside investors. Consequently, controlling owners are perceived to report accounting information for self-interested purposes, causing the reported earnings to lose credibility to outside investors. Second, concentrated ownership is associated with low earnings informativeness as ownership concentration prevents leakage of proprietary information about the firms’ rent-seeking activities.

Using the quarterly Compustat files, we present empirical findings that business capital investment is significantly higher in the fourth quarter than in other quarters. Even after controlling for business capital investment determinants, we find that the fourth quarter capital investment is significantly larger but less sensitive to investment opportunities than other quarters' capital investment. This phenomenon is more evident for firms with larger cash holdings than for firms with smaller cash holdings, for larger firms than for smaller firms, and for diversified firms than for stand-alone firms. Our findings suggest a high level of agency costs in corporate investment decisions.

We consider an implementation problem faced by a planner who manages a roadway network. The problem entails both hidden information and hidden actions. We solve the planner's problem by introducing a new class of mechanisms and a new notion of implementation. The mechanisms, called price schemes, attach transfers to the available routes; they do not involve direct revelation. The method of implementation is evolutionary, requiring that players who follow any reasonable myopic adjustment process eventually learn to behave as the planner desires. We show that efficient behavior can be guaranteed using simple, decentralized price schemes.

This article investigates investor activism when there are a number of strategic investors that are capable of intervening in corporate governance. These strategic investors can monitor and/or trade in anonymous financial markets. In equilibrium, a core group of monitoring investors emerges endogenously to curtail managerial opportunism. These core activists both intervene and trade aggressively. Although the smallest investors are passive, there is no monotonic relationship between the size of preexisting shareholdings and activism. In fact, among those investors who choose activism, those with the smallest holdings are the most aggressive.

Stock flippers pose a problem for underwriters of initial public offerings (IPOs). They subscribe to the issue, but immediately resell their shares, which may depress the aftermarket price. This paper presents a model of how stock flippers affect IPO pricing. The model shows that the underwriter chooses whether to price the issue as a cold, weak, or hot IPO. Stock flippers have the greatest effect on pricing in weak IPOs and provide an explanation for underwriter stabilization. In contrast to existing models of stabilization, the underwriter gains from after-market purchases, particularly if the contract with the issuer includes an over-allotment option. The over-allotment option encourages a lower offer price, which may lead to under-pricing. These results correspond to recent findings on IPO returns and underwriter stabilization activities.