In a sample of underwritten seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), issuers with boards dominated by independent directors experience higher abnormal announcement returns than issuers with boards dominated by insiders. Firm size, transparency, and other governance characteristics do not explain the effect of board independence. The positive relation between board independence and SEO returns is more pronounced for firms with lower monitoring costs and more severe financial constraints. The evidence suggests that independent directors have a positive effect because of their role in controlling both shareholder–manager conflicts (monitoring the use of funds) and current–new shareholder conflicts (certification of the issue’s value).

We model how a rent-protection motive drives the choice of flotation method in new equity issuance between two polar cases: rights issues and cash offers. Unexpected new blockholders would emerge in control-diluting cash offers and share in jealously guarded control benefits. But rights issues help the incumbent controlling shareholders avoid control dilution and safeguard their private benefits. Under asymmetric information about private benefits, the choice of flotation method can convey information about hidden private benefits and hence firm value. Our model can explain even a negative announcement effect of rights issues, and it supports not just one but three important equilibriums.

The role of underwriters is altered in new seasoned equity offering deal types in which the offering follows quickly after its announcement. Controlling for the endogenous matching between issuing firms and underwriters, we find increased underwriter reputation mitigates the immediate price impact of announcing an accelerated bookbuilt offering, exacerbates the price impact of announcing a bought offering, and has no immediate price impact for fully marketed deals. In contrast, underwriter reputation positively affects price outcomes for fully marketed deals around the offer date. Reputation effects are not apparent in the absence of controlling for the endogenous matching.

Kim Dong-ri and Seo Jeong-ju were prodigious personalities of Korean literature in the 20th century. The friendship of these prominent writers began in the 1930s and lasted their entire lives. Together they contributed to the reconstruction of the literary world in Korea after the end of the Japanese Occupation. This paper examines their biographies, auto-biographies, and different testimonies in an attempt to understand and appreciate not only the development and depth of their friendship, but also their legacy to Korean literature that was based on the literary and humanistic values they shared.

We examine the role of relationship-based resource allocations during the approval process of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) in the Chinese capital market. Our results show that guanxi-based relationships significantly increase the likelihood of SEO approvals, particularly for suspect SEO applicants with abnormal levels of earnings management (EM), related-party transactions (RPTs), and intercompany loans. More importantly, we find that guanxi-influenced SEO firms have significantly poorer performance in the post-SEO period, which indicates that it results in inefficient resource allocations. Overall, our evidence suggests that relationship-based resource allocations lead to negative spillover effects that impose social welfare losses.

Students of Beowulf, pondering the hero's encounter with Grendel, have had two serious doubts about the poet's procedures. The first stems from the (supposed) disruption of narrative tension that results from the author's concentration on Grendel's mental processes almost as much as on the fight itself. Although penetrating psychological analysis is now recognized to be a characteristic of the poet, and in fact one of the elements of his genius, still it is felt that he ought to have restrained his subjective bent in passages of intense narrative action.

We examine the extent to which investment opportunities and/or mispricing motivate equity issuance and contribute to post-issue stock underperformance. We decompose market-to-book ratios into misvaluation and growth option components and find that issuing firms are both overvalued and have greater growth opportunities relative to nonissuers. Firms with greater growth opportunities invest more in capital expenditures and research and development (R&D) after issuance but do not experience lower post-issue stock returns. In contrast, issuing firms with greater mispricing tend to decrease long-term debt and/or increase cash holdings and do earn lower returns. Our findings are consistent with behavioral explanations for post-issue stock price underperformance.