Note(s): This table reports the results of multivariate DID regressions on the number of M&As for the pilot and the control firms over the periods before, during and after Regulation SHO's pilot program. Panel A reports the multivariate DID regression for high- and low-CEO-incentive-pay firms. The CEO incentive pay is calculated by

$CEO_incentive_payi,t=1−Salaryi,t+Bonusi,tTotal_CEO_compensationi,t,$

where Total_CEO_compensation is item TDC1 in the ExecuComp database, which equals the sum of salary, bonus, other annual, the total value of restricted stock granted, the total value of stock options granted calculated using the Black-Scholes option-pricing formula, long-term incentive payouts, and all other totals. We use the CEO_incentive_pay measures in 2003 to group all firms into two subsamples. Firms with CEO_incentive_pay above and below the median are classified as high- and low-CEO-incentive-pay firms, respectively

We estimate the multivariate DID panel regression as follows

Ln_(1 + Count_i,t) = α₀ + β₁Pilot_i×During_t + β₂Pilot_i×After_t + β₃Pilot_i + β₄During_t + β₅After_t + β₆X_i,t + ɛ_i,t

In this model, Ln_(1 + Count_i,t) is the natural logarithm of (1 + Count_i,t), while Count_i,t is the total number of value-destroying M&As, including either cross-industry M&As or those with a negative CAR, announced by firm i in a given year t. Pilot_i equals one if firm i belongs to the pilot group and zero otherwise. After_t is a dummy variable that equals one if the year is during the Post period (2007 to 2010). X_i,t is the set of controlling variables including return on assets (ROA), market-to-book ratio (MB_Ratio), leverage (Leverage), size (Ln_MV), sales (Ln_Sales), capital expenditures (CAPEX), R&D expenditures (RDX), and cash and short-term investment (Cash). If we add a firm fixed effect in the panel regression, we omit Pilot_i in that column to avoid multicollinearity. We cluster the standard errors at the firm level. The Chi-square test statistic (χ²) indicates whether the coefficient of Pilot × During differs significantly between the two subsamples. For simplicity, we do not report the coefficients of the control variables. In Panel B, we report the proportion of firms by age (mature vs. young) or Agency^FCF (high vs. low) in the high-CEO-incentive-pay group. We also report the Chi-square statistics to test whether the two groups have proportions different from 50% jointly. ^***, ^**, and ^* denote significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively