We examine the relation between corporate governance and managerial risk-taking behavior. In light of the global financial crisis, the importance of effective governance structures in protecting claimholder interests cannot be emphasized enough. For corporate governance, we propose to include...

The current literature on the adoption of enterprise risk management (ERM) abstracts from the issue of its strategic context. Accounting for the interplay between ERM and various individual risk management (IRM) practices, this paper presents a theoretical basis to study the strategic...

This study tests two major theories of insurer underwriting cycles and extends the hypotheses to explain insurers’ reserving behaviors. By applying a simultaneous equations model to cross-sectional and time-series firm-level data, this study proposes that insurers’ net investment income can...

This research analyzes the performance of the health insurance CO-OPs, examines their medical services and operating efficiency, and discusses an efficiency-based goal-oriented approach for potential cost reductions, premium changes, and government subsidies. Most CO-OPs suffer underwriting...

Underwriting and investment are two important and related business activities of insurance companies. However, studies on the interrelation between underwriting and investment risks of Property-Liability (P-L) insurance companies are sparse in the literature. Using a sample of U.S. P-L insurers,...

We use a sample of democratic firms (with 5 or less anti-takeover provisions) from the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) database and use idiosyncratic volatility as a proxy for information from the market of corporate control as in Ferreira and Laux (2007) to link the equity...

For a sample of convertible bonds issued during the period 1980 through 2002, we empirically investigate the determinants of call policy. We find that the risk of a failed call over the call notice period helps explain why firms call only after conversion value exceeds call price by a...

This paper examines the cross-listings by Chinese companies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S. markets from 1993 to 2005. Our sample consists of 101 firms cross-listed in Hong Kong, 43 firms in the U.S. and 77 firms in Singapore and a sample of 1,247 domestic listings. We find that the...

This paper investigates the effect of option listing on corporate financing decisions. Firms experience a significant drop in leverage, which is mainly driven by an increase in equity issues. This effect is concentrated in firms with low profitability, high information asymmetry, and active...

This paper examines whether the risk-taking incentives induced by performance-based vesting (p-v) compensation influence bank loan contracting and credit ratings. Consistent with our risk-shifting hypothesis, we find that the p-v based compensation, as measured by the proportion of grant date...