We argue and demonstrate empirically that a firm's institutional and legal context has first‐order effects in tests that use state antitakeover laws for identification. A priori, the size and direction of a law's effect on a firm's takeover protection depends on (i) other state antitakeover laws, (ii) preexisting firm‐level takeover defenses, and (iii) the legal regime as reflected by important court decisions. In addition, (iv) state antitakeover laws are not exogenous for many easily identifiable firms. We show that the inferences from nine prior studies related to nine different outcome variables change substantially when we include controls for these considerations.
We show that a large number of firms adopt poison pills during periods of market turmoil. Specifically, during the coronavirus pandemic, many firms adopted poison pills following declines in valuations, and stock prices increased upon the announcement of firms’ poison pill adoption. Stock price increases are driven by (1) firms in which activist shareholders acquire ownership stakes and (2) firms in industries that had high exposure to the crisis. Likewise, we find a positive reaction to pills with provisions directed at stalling activists’ interventions. Our results suggest that crisis pills that target potentially disruptive ownership changes may benefit current shareholders.
Data collected from a national survey of economic development professionals are used in this study to examine the perceived role of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified and Energy Star-certified buildings in the business recruitment process. A series of ordinal logistic regression models are estimated to examine economic developers' attitudes toward these buildings after controlling for their personal characteristics and the characteristics of the communities where they work. The results suggest less favorable perceptions about this form of sustainable real estate development in smaller communities and those with weaker economic fundamentals. Furthermore, women employed in economic development are found to have more favorable attitudes toward these buildings than their male counterparts. Increasing support for sustainable real estate development among economic developers working in local government may therefore require a combination of thoughtful policy making, executive education, and greater gender diversity in the profession.
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