because a higher productivity of talentedworkers raises not only the value but also the cost of signaling; thelatter stems … from more effort and the choice of a high visibility jobbeing substitutes for the purpose of signaling. Results naturally …

for dividend increases. Uniquely, this study simultaneously tests the signaling and agency abatement motivations as … increased dividends constrict management's future behavior, abating the agency problem with shareholders. The signaling … partitions dividend increases into a sample motivated by agency abatement and a sample motivated by cash flow signaling. Further …

In the first chapter of this dissertation, entitled “Signaling and Value Creation in Mergers,” I analyze the acquirers … in both withdrawn and completed merger deals to disentangle the effects of signaling from those of target valuation and … withdrawal. These results suggest that the initial negative stock price reaction in stock mergers is due to a signaling effect …