This paper investigates whether employee stock option proceeds, both executive and non-executive are employed by firms to finance investment by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment which mandated option expensing, SFAS 123R. We find that despite a fall in both executive and non-executive option grants and proceeds, investment has increased post-SFAS 123R. The investment's sensitivity to option proceeds remains constant or even decreases for non-executive option proceeds post-SFAS 123R implying that option proceeds are not an integral source of finance. Our results are not driven by the recent financial crisis as well as the changes in corporate governance and financial constraints over the sample period.

We compare the motivations for switching underwriters between seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) for both shelf offerings and traditional offerings. Shelf offerings have risen in importance and accounted for more than 90% of SEOs in 2015. In traditional offerings, the underwriter is selected before the terms and pricing of the deal are set. In contrast, shelf issuers request proposals or bids from underwriters for the sale of securities and the underwriter is selected based on the pricing, terms and services offered in the bid. The competitive and transactional nature of the shelf registered market may reduce switching costs for the issuer and potentially increases the issuer's bargaining power. This suggests that underwriter switching in shelf offerings might have different, heretofore unexplored, drivers from traditional offerings. The results suggest that cost-considerations motivate switching in shelf offerings whereas underwriter reputation motivates switching in traditional offerings. However, changes in underwriter reputation can themselves be associated with changes in cost. Cost considerations also impact switching from traditional offerings to shelf offerings.