Growing Out of Trouble? Corporate Responses to Liability Risk
研究了企业如何应对工人接触新致癌物带来的责任风险，发现资产负债表弱的企业倾向于通过收购高现金流的不相关业务来应对，但这种增长损害股东价值，且与公司治理相关。
This article analyzes corporate responses to the liability risk arising from workers' exposure to newly identified carcinogens. We find that firms, especially those with weak balance sheets, tend to respond to such risks by acquiring large, unrelated businesses with relatively high operating cash flows. The diversifying growth appears to be primarily motivated by managers' personal exposure to their firms' risk in that the growth has negative announcement returns and is related to firms' external governance, managerial stockholdings, and institutional ownership. The results suggest that corporate governance is particularly important when firms are exposed to the risk of large, adverse shocks.