The operator Cauchy dual to a $2$-hyperexpansive operator $T$, given by $T'\equiv T(T^*T)^{-1}$, turns out to be a hyponormal contraction. This simple observation leads to a structure theorem for the $C^*$-algebra generated by a $2$-hyperexpansion, and a version of the Berger–Shaw theorem for $2$-hyperexpansions.

As an application of the hyperexpansivity version of the Berger–Shaw theorem, we show that every analytic $2$-hyperexpansive operator with finite-dimensional cokernel is unitarily equivalent to a compact perturbation of a unilateral shift.