Foreign migration flows have important stock market consequences. Foreign-born resident networks within U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) are associated with excess return comovement between locally headquartered stocks and American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) from countries with ties to the MSA through the network of foreign-born residents. This comovement is hardly due to correlated fundamentals and at least partially driven by correlated trading within members of a common investor base consisting of foreign-born residents. Our evidence has implications for both investors and foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) seeking to reap benefits from cross-listings and is consistent with the notion that foreign-born residents exhibit both local bias and home (country) bias.

While the gains to acquirers in public mergers and aquisitions (M&A) tend to be small or non-existent, acquirers of unlisted targets have been a notable, robust exception. Prior studies often point to an illiquidity discount as the reason why these non-public targets are good deals for acquirers. This paper examines acquirer wealth gains and bid premia in M&A involving unlisted/listed firms over the past three decades. Our findings show that, while target listing status was a significant determinant of acquirer wealth gains and bid premium in early years, it no longer has significant shareholder wealth implications for either acquirers or targets in M&A. These results are consistent with recent studies that suggest a changing landscape in the public funding markets and an increased availability of alternative funding sources for unlisted firms.