Hedge Funds

Foreign Investor Activism in Japan: The First Ten Years

The Returns to Hedge Fund Activism

Hedge fund activism is a new form of arbitrage. Using a large hand-collected data set from 2001 to 2006 we find that activist hedge funds in the U.S. propose...

The Lost Decade for Hedge Funds: Three Threats

The last decade has challenged the paradigm of the hedge fund industry as a unique performer. We identify three main factors that have affected the...

The most important phenomenon in the corporate world today is the swift and dramatic rise of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”)...

Shareholder Voting in an Age of Intermediary Capitalism

Shareholder voting is a key part of contemporary American corporate governance. As numerous contemporary battles between corporate management and...

Competition for Flow and Short-Termism in Activism

We develop a dual-layered agency model to study blockholder monitoring by activist funds that compete for investor flow. Competition for flow affects...

Activism Pressure and the Market for Corporate Assets

We investigate the impact of hedge fund activism on corporate transaction markets. We find that activism targets as well as firms exposed to hedge fund...

The European Commission's Sustainable Corporate Governance Report: A Critique

In July 2020, the European Commission published the “Study on directors’ duties and sustainable corporate governance” by EY. The Report...

Hedge Fund Activism, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance

Using a large hand-collected dataset from 2001 to 2006, we find that activist hedge funds in the U.S. propose strategic, operational, and financial...

The Rise of Anti-Activist Poison Pills

We provide the first systematic evidence of contractual innovation in the terms of poison pill plans. In response to the increase in hedge fund activism,...

Agency Theory in Practice: A Qualitative Study of Hedge Fund Activism in Japan

We look at the reaction to hedge fund activism of managers and shareholders in Japanese firms and explore the implications of our findings for agency...

Hedge Fund Activism

We examine recent confrontational shareholder activism campaigns by hedge funds and by other private investors. The three main parallels between the...