Do managerial incentive horizons have capital market consequences? We find that they do when short-sale constraints are more binding. Firms experience significant stock price inflation when their CEOs have short horizon incentives. The short-horizon CEOs sell more shares at inflated prices and generate greater abnormal trading profits. The stock price inflation is partly explained by greater earnings surprises and more positive investor reaction to the surprises. To inflate stock prices, short-horizon firms are more likely to employ income-increasing discretionary accruals. Consistent with theoretical predictions, all these effects are attenuated or statistically insignificant when short-sale constraints are less binding.

Size threshold-based regulatory requirements are pervasive in banking, but little is known about how they affect the merger and acquisition (M&A) behavior of banks around the thresholds. M&As cause discrete increases in size, so we hypothesize changes in banks' M&A behavior near regulatory size thresholds and associated real effects (changes in small business lending by the acquiring banks). We develop a novel research design that estimates indirect treatment effects for banks just below the thresholds. We find strong evidence of indirect treatment effects on bank M&A behavior and the small business lending of the merged banks. Our results illustrate the importance of indirect treatment effects in difference-in-differences studies involving size thresholds.