Valuation Effects of Greenmail Prohibitions
研究禁止绿票讹诈的公司章程修正案对股东财富的影响，发现平均市场反应微弱负面，但股价前期涨幅大的公司中禁令能提升价值。
Greenmail payments are widely viewed as actions designed by managers to perpetuate their tenure in office. This view, which suggests that greenmail prohibitions would enhance shareholder wealth, receives mixed empirical support in this paper. The average market reaction to charter amendments prohibiting greenmail payments is weakly negative, suggesting there is a value to maintaining managerial flexibility. Nonlinear maximum likelihood estimation, however, reveals a strong positive correlation between the market reaction and the firm's abnormal stock price runup over the three months just prior to the proxy mailing date. For the subsample of firms with a relatively large prior runup, the precommitment not to pay greenmail is value enhancing. If the prior runup reflects takeover rumors, then this evidence is consistent with the proposition that greenmail payments amidst takeover speculations are value decreasing.