How Does Hedge Fund Activism Reshape Corporate Innovation? / Alon Brav, Wei Jiang, Song Ma, Xuan Tian.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brav, Alon.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Jiang, Wei.

Ma, Song.

Tian, Xuan.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22273.

NBER working paper series no. w22273

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

This paper studies how hedge fund activism reshapes corporate innovation. Firms targeted by hedge fund activists experience an improvement in innovation efficiency during the five-year period following the intervention. Despite a tightening in R&D expenditures, target firms experience increases in innovation output, measured by both patent counts and citations, with stronger effects seen among firms with more diversified innovation portfolios. We also find that the reallocation of innovative resources and the redeployment of human capital contribute to the refocusing of the scope of innovation. Finally, additional tests refute alternative explanations attributing the improvement to mean reversion, sample attrition, management's voluntary reforms, or activists' stock-picking abilities.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2016.