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This paper studies how tax increases transmit across countries through multinationals’ internal networks of subsidiaries. Using a large subsidiary-level dataset of European firms and several exogenous tax hikes, we find that local business units cut capital investment in response to foreign tax increases. We document two channels that propagate these shocks through firms’ internal networks: production linkages among subsidiaries and financial constraints. In the aggregate, domestic investment and employment decline with higher exposure to foreign tax increases, suggesting that tax increases in one country can spill over to other foreign countries.

We test the independence of news content from journalists’ social networks. We find that business news reported by connected journalists—such as those sharing a working relationship or common schooling institutions with the respective company management—are associated with markedly more favorable coverage. Connected articles significantly increase short-term stock returns but also distort longer-term capital allocation, suggesting real effects of journalist connections in the economy. We make causal inferences about the connection effects by exploring exogenous journalist turnovers and an ownership change of the Wall Street Journal.

We study earnings surprises disclosed hours before M&A announcements in which both merging firms operate in the same 1-digit SIC as the earnings-releasing firms. These surprises correlate with the acquirers’ M&A announcement return. Consistent with behavioral theory, one week after the M&A announcement, acquirers’ response to the earnings surprises disappears. While acquirers’ stock misvaluation is transitory, other effects to the M&A process are permanent. Larger earnings surprises are related to increases in bid competition, in takeover premiums, and in withdrawn M&As. These results indicate that behavioral biases, characterized by trend-seeking and extrapolation, generate material distortions in some M&A transactions.