We show that the commonly observed correlation between institutional investor ownership and the success of mergers is partly driven by active stock picking. Several mutual fund stock selection skill measures strongly predict the post-merger performance of corporate acquirers even after controlling for possible shareholder monitoring. These findings are stronger for funds with characteristics more indicative of active stock picking. Moreover, firms held by funds with higher stock selection skills are more likely to subsequently become acquirers, suggesting that the mutual fund skill set includes the ability to identify acquirers with value-enhancing acquisition opportunities.

Based on a survey of 1, 268 firms in 12 cities, this article empirically studies unions' effects on worker welfare in China. Regressions carried out on a rich set of specifications show that unionization is significantly associated with higher hourly wages and larger pension coverage and weakly associated with lower monthly working hours. Further econometric analysis finds that unions promote individual and collective contracts. The effect of collective contracts vanishes when unions are present, whereas individual contracts have independent and positive effects. In addition, unions have effects on workers' welfare independent of collective and individual contracts.

This paper provides comprehensive, detailed documentation of major corporate governance reforms (CGRs) undertaken by 26 advanced and emerging economies. We investigate whether these reforms have altered investor protection (IP) and impacted corporate investments. Specifically, we estimate the CGRs' impacts on foreign acquirers' tendency to pick better performing firms in emerging markets. We argue the cherry picking is partly due to emerging countries' weaker IP than acquirer countries', predicting a positive relation between the degree of cherry picking and the gap in the strength of IP. Thus, if the CGRs strengthen IP, the gap will decrease (increase) following a CGR in a target's (acquirer's) country, moderating (intensifying) the cherry picking tendency. This is what we find when we estimate difference-in-differences in cherry picking before and after a CGR. These results not only demonstrate the important impacts the CGRs had, but also imply the IP gap between capital exporting and importing countries distorts firm-level allocation of foreign capital inflows and reduces the benefits of globalization.

We identify large discontinuous changes, known as jumps, in daily stock prices and explore the role of jumps in cross-sectional stock return predictability. Our results show that small and illiquid stocks have higher jump returns to the extent that cross-sectional differences in jumps fully account for the size and illiquidity effects. Based on value-weighted portfolios, jumps also account for the value premium. On the other hand, jumps are not the cause of momentum or net share issue effects. The findings of our study shed new light on stock return dynamics and present challenges to conventional explanations of stock return predictability.

Reference dependence, loss aversion, and risk seeking for losses together comprise the preference-based component of prospect theory that sets its value function apart from the standard risk-aversion model. Using an elasticity analysis, we show that this distinctive preference component serves to underpin negative-feedback trading propensities, but cannot manifest itself in behavior directly or holistically at the individual-choice level. We then propose and demonstrate that the market interaction between prospect-theory investors and regular CRRA investors allows this preference component to dominate in equilibrium behavior and hence helps to reestablish the intuitive link between prospect-theory preferences and negative-feedback trading patterns. In the model, the interaction also reconciles the contrarian behavior of prospect-theory investors with asymmetric volatility and short-term return reversal. The results suggest that prospect-theory preferences can lead investors to behave endogenously as contrarian noise traders in the market interaction process.

This paper combines the static effect of ownership and the dynamic effect of privatization on bank performance in China over 1995–2010, reporting a significantly higher performance by private intermediaries – joint stock commercial banks and city commercial banks – relative to state-owned commercial banks. However, publicly traded banks, subject to multiple monitoring and vetting in capital markets, perform better regardless of ownership status. The privatization of banks has improved performance with respect to revenue inflow and efficiency gains in the short- or long-run (initial public offerings). The positive long-run effect is more relevant and significant for banking institutions with minority foreign ownership. Moreover, this paper innovatively estimates interest income efficiency and non-interest income efficiency at the same time. The results suggest that Chinese banks are much more efficient in generating interest income than raising non-interest revenue, although the latter aspect has improved significantly during the sample period.

Firms with higher asset growth rates subsequently experience lower stock returns in international equity markets, consistent with the U.S. evidence. This negative effect of asset growth on returns is stronger in more developed capital markets and markets where stocks are more efficiently priced, but is unrelated to country characteristics representing limits to arbitrage, investor protection, and accounting quality. The evidence suggests that the cross-sectional relation between asset growth and stock return is more likely due to an optimal investment effect than due to overinvestment, market timing, or other forms of mispricing.