RCFS News

Differences in their objective functions lead to possible conflicts of interests between various stakeholders of firms; e.g., between shareholders and employees. These conflicts are more likely to manifest when firms face important investment or governance decisions, specifically, at times of mergers and acquisitions. How does the power of a firm’s labor force affect its exposure and gains in takeovers? In a forthcoming RCFS paper, “Hard Marriage with Heavy Burdens: Organized… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Hard Marriage with Heavy Burdens: Organized Labor as Takeover Deterrents

The dual submission decisions for the 2021 RCFS Winter Conference have been sent. If you submitted your paper as a dual submission and did not receive your decision email, please contact us.

The relationship between hedge fund activists and institutional shareholders in firms targeted by activists could be fraught with conflicting interests, making it a very important question to explore. In the paper “Institutional Investors and Hedge Fund Activism,” Simi Kedia, Laura Starks, and Xianjue Wang study how differences among institutional investors impact their willingness to support hedge fund activists, the impact on the campaign’s success, and potential value created from hedge… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Institutional Investors and Hedge Fund Activism

The scale and scope of various government interventions around the globe in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak have been nothing short of staggering. Programs have come in different forms: guaranteed loans, equity injections, bank loans to SMEs that can be transformed into government-financed grants, etc. The actions taken in the initial stages of the outbreak, necessary to fight the economic fallout, are bound to generate major spillovers going forward.… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Efficient Programs to Support Businesses During and After Lockdowns

The stock market stress caused by the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak generated an ideal situation for cash-rich activists to buy strategic equity positions in target firms. Distinguishing low stock valuations due to bad management decisions, potentially necessitating an activist campaign, from the systematic blow due to the pandemic’s economic impact, may have been too difficult under the circumstances we observed in the early months. Some of these activist campaigns… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Crisis Poison Pills

            Regulators around the world often react to financial crises by restricting short sales of bank stocks to maintain financial stability. Then, a natural question to ask is whether these short-selling restrictions end up alleviating unwarranted price drops for banks and hence protect vulnerable financial institutions. In a forthcoming RCFS paper, “Short-Selling Bans and Bank Stability,” Alessandro Beber, Daniela Fabbri, Marco Pagano, and Saverio Simonelli… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Short-Selling Bans and Bank Stability