We examine the impact of actual share repurchases on stock prices using several measures of price efficiency and manually collected data on U.S. repurchases. We find that share repurchases make prices more efficient and reduce idiosyncratic risk. Further analyses reveal that the effects are primarily driven by repurchases in down markets. We conclude that share repurchases help to maintain accurate stock prices by providing price support at fundamental values. We find no evidence that managers use share repurchases to manipulate stock prices when selling their equity holdings or exercising stock options.

We study the human capital effects of private equity buyouts in Germany. We conduct matched-sample difference-in-differences estimations at the establishment and at the individual employee level with more than 152 thousand buyout employees and a carefully matched control group. Buyouts are followed by a reduction in overall employment and an increase in employee turnover. Employees of buyout targets experience earnings declines equivalent to 2.8% of median earnings in the fifth year after the buyout. Managers and older employees fare far worse after buyouts compared with the average target employee, even though they are not more likely to lose their jobs at the target compared with other employees. We argue that the employees most negatively affected after buyouts are those who are less likely to find new employment, not those who are most likely to lose their jobs. Evidence exists of a reduction in administrative staff and more hiring for jobs that require IT skills.

We analyze the impact of share repurchases on liquidity based on a new comprehensive data set of realized share repurchases in the US, which covers 50,204 repurchase months between 2004 and 2010. Using instrumental variable analysis, we show that repurchases unequivocally improve liquidity and suggest that endogenous controls have confounded results in earlier studies. Liquidity also influences how firms execute repurchase programs. Repurchases provide liquidity when other investors sell the firm's stock or in times of crisis. No evidence exists that firms reduce liquidity when they trade on private information.

This paper examines how initial public offerings (IPOs) affect firms' internal organization. We find that IPO firms become more hierarchical and standardized organizations, characterized by additional layers, more managers, smaller control spans, and larger administrative functions. These changes occur mostly in preparation for the IPO and can be only partially explained by growth. IPO firms with greater human capital risk experience larger hierarchical changes. Hierarchical changes help firms standardize employee roles and formalize internal processes. Our results suggest that firms reorganize to reduce their dependence on key individuals' human capital when transitioning to public markets.

We examine whether CEOs use share repurchases to sell their equity at inflated prices. We document that share repurchases, like equity-based compensation, are affected by the corporate calendar—the firm's schedule of earnings announcements and insider trading restrictions. The corporate calendar can fully explain why share repurchases and equity-based compensation coincide. The alignment with the corporate calendar is stricter in firms with strong internal governance or high external monitoring. When CEOs sell equity, firms are actually less likely to repurchase. Our findings reconcile earlier studies and highlight the importance of the corporate calendar for the timing of share repurchases.