This paper examines the hypothesis that firms in competitive industries should benefit relatively less from good governance, while firms in non-competitive industries-where lack of competitive pressure fails to enforce discipline on managers-should benefit relatively more.Whether we look at the effects of governance on long-horizon stock returns, firm value, or operating performance, we consistently find the same pattern: The effect is monotonic in the degree of competition, it is small and insignificant in competitive industries, and it is large and significant in non-competitive industries. By implication, the effect of governance (in non-competitive industries) reported in this paper is stronger than what has been previously reported in Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2003, "GIM") and subsequent work, who document the average effect across all industries. For instance, GIM's hedge portfolio-provided it only includes firms in non-competitive industries-earns a monthly alpha of 1.47%, which is twice as large as the alpha reported in GIM. The alpha remains large and significant even if the sample period is extended until 2006. We also revisit the argument that investors in the 1990s anticipated the effect of governance, implying that the alpha earned by GIM's hedge portfolio is likely due to an omitted risk factor. We find that while investors were indeed not surprised on average, they underestimated the effect of governance in non-competitive industries, the very industries in which governance has a significant effect in the first place.

By reducing the fear of a hostile takeover, business combination (BC) laws weaken corporate governance and create more opportunity for managerial slack. Using the passage of BC laws as a source of identifying variation, we examine if such laws have a different effect on firms in competitive and non-competitive industries. We find that while firms in non-competitive industries experience a substantial drop in operating performance, firms in competitive industries experience virtually no effect. Though consistent with the general notion that competition mitigates managerial agency problems, our results are, in particular, supportive of the stronger Alchian-Friedman-Stigler hypothesis that managerial slack cannot exist, or survive, in competitive industries. When we examine which agency problem competition mitigates, we find evidence in favor of a "quiet-life" hypothesis. While capital expenditures are unaffected by the passage of BC laws, input costs, wages, and overhead costs all increase, and only so in non-competitive industries. We also conduct event studies around the dates of the first newspaper reports about the BC laws. We find that while firms in non-competitive industries experience a significant decline in their stock prices, firms in competitive industries experience a small and insignificant price impact.

This paper examines the hypothesis that firms in competitive industries should benefit relatively less from good governance, while firms in non-competitive industries-where lack of competitive pressure fails to enforce discipline on managers-should benefit relatively more.Whether we look at the effects of governance on long-horizon stock returns, firm value, or operating performance, we consistently find the same pattern: The effect is monotonic in the degree of competition, it is small and insignificant in competitive industries, and it is large and significant in non-competitive industries. By implication, the effect of governance (in non-competitive industries) reported in this paper is stronger than what has been previously reported in Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2003, "GIM") and subsequent work, who document the average effect across all industries. For instance, GIM's hedge portfolio-provided it only includes firms in non-competitive industries-earns a monthly alpha of 1.47%, which is twice as large as the alpha reported in GIM. The alpha remains large and significant even if the sample period is extended until 2006. We also revisit the argument that investors in the 1990s anticipated the effect of governance, implying that the alpha earned by GIM's hedge portfolio is likely due to an omitted risk factor. We find that while investors were indeed not surprised on average, they underestimated the effect of governance in non-competitive industries, the very industries in which governance has a significant effect in the first place.

We show that venture capitalists' (VCs) on-site involvement with their portfolio companies leads to an increase in (1) innovation and (2) the likelihood of a successful exit. We rule out selection effects by exploiting an exogenous source of variation in VC involvement: the introduction of new airline routes that reduce VCs' travel times to their existing portfolio companies. We confirm the importance of this channel by conducting a large-scale survey of VCs, of whom almost 90% indicate that direct flights increase their interaction with their portfolio companies and management, and help them better understand companies' activities.